Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love and Other Stories - Softcover

Picano, Felice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1951092481 ISBN 13: 9781951092481

Publisher: ReQueered Tales, 2022

Synopsis

Felice Picano’s first collection of gay short stories span the period 1975-1982 as published by the pioneering Gay Presses of New York. Read again forty years later, they are a delicious time-capsule of gay life mostly before AIDS and set in iconic gay meccas such as New York and Fire Island. In "Spinning", we get inside the head of a DJ busy spinning for the customers, tricking in his mind and deftly conjuring up the disco sub-culture which has since faded away. In "The Interrupted Recital" we eavesdrop into the classical music world where ego clashes lead to disastrous outcomes.

There are marvelous character portraits as in "Teddy", about a handsome Vietnam vet back home for a quick furlough. Or the evocation of Christmas in multiple New York households in “Xmas in the Apple”. Longer works such as "Hunter", set in a writer's colony are pure horror fiction. The longest piece, the novella "And Baby Makes Three" spreads its wings recreating Fire Island of the 1970s and features Picano's trademark surprises and miscues which make the tale memorable long after the last page is turned.

First published to acclaim in 1982, this new edition features a foreword by Eric Andrews-Katz (The Jesus Injection).

About this title

About the Authors

Felice Picano is the author of more than thirty books of poetry, fiction, memoirs, nonfiction, and plays. His work has been translated into many languages and several of his titles have been national and international bestsellers. He is considered a founder of modern gay literature along with the other members of the Violet Quill. Picano also began and operated the SeaHorse Press and Gay Presses of New York for fifteen years. His first novel was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Since then he's been nominated for and/or won dozens of literary awards.A five-time Lambda Literary Award nominee, Picano's books include the best-selling novels The Book of Lies, Like People in History, and Looking Glass Lives as well as the literary memoirs Men Who Loved Me and A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay. Along with Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Edmund White, and George Whitmore, he founded the Violet Quill Club to promote and increase the visibility of gay authors and their works. In 2009, the Lambda Literary Foundation awarded Picano its Lifetime Achievement/Pioneer Award. Originally from New York, the author now lives in Los Angeles.

Eric Andrews-Katz has been writing since he could hold a pen. After studying creative writing and journalism at University of South Florida, he wrote reviews and interviews with Seattle Gay News; his online work is available at Equality365.com. His first short story, "Mr. Grimm's Faery Tale", was anthologized in So Fey: Queer Fairy Fiction was nominated for the 2008 Spectrum Award for Best Short Fiction. His first novel The Jesus Injection was released November 2012. Currently, with his married partner Alan, Eric calls Seattle home.

Edition details

• Publisher: ReQueered Tales
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1951092481
• ISBN 13: 9781951092481
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 244