Felice Picano, the gay author of such acclaimed novels as The Lure, Eyes, Onyx, and The Book of Lies, along with nonfiction works including The Joy of Gay Sex, died this week at age 81.
Keep up with the latest in LGBTQ+ news and politics. Sign up for The Advocate's email newsletter.
Picano’s death was announced on Facebook by his publisher, Rebel Satori Press. “Felice Picano’s remarkable contribution to literature and his brave exploration of queer identities have left an indelible mark on countless readers and writers alike,” the publisher posted. “Born in 1944, Felice was a literary trailblazer. His works, including Like People in History and The Lure, reflected not only his storytelling prowess but also his commitment to examining the complexities of love, sexuality, and the human experience. He was a voice of resilience and authenticity, inspiring many with his bold narratives and rich character development.”
Picano authored more than 30 works of fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, poetry, plays, and screenplays. Born in New York City, he graduated cum laude from the City University of New York’s Queens College in 1964, then did graduate studies at Columbia University. Although he was a skilled artist, he was unable to find work in this field, so “he was roped into a series of moderately entertaining, barely paid, and minimally creative editorial and writing jobs,” according to his biography on Amazon.com. He also spent time “on the outskirts of the Warhol Factor,” the biography notes. While he was working at the Rizzoli bookstore in New York, a colleague referred him to a literary agent, and his career as an author began.
His early novels included Smart as the Devil (1975), Eyes (1976), The Mesmerist (1977), and The Lure (1979). The Lure, one of his most popular works, was reprinted in the U.K. in 2019. It was based on a series of killings of gay men in New York, and in Picano’s novel, an ostensibly straight widower, Noel Cummings, is recruited to act as a lure for the killer.
“Cummings begins the novel as an ingenuous academic vaguely repulsed by homosexuality until his own journey of discovery, as bait for a serial killer, causes him to reassess,” Out magazine, a sister publication of The Advocate, reported in 2018. “Only mid-novel, once Cummings is engaging in drug-infused gay orgies, does one appreciate the skill with which Picano has seduced straight readers. Much of the plot revolves around a fundamental misapprehension, but the real pleasure of the book is to be found in its vivid portrait of an era just before sex became not merely taboo, but deadly.”
The Lure was the first gay-themed book to be chosen as a selection for the Book of the Month Club. “They did me a wonderful favor, writing ‘Warning: sex and violence’ on the cover,” Picano told The Guardian in 2019.
“The Lure was hugely controversial with conservative readers and some gay readers because Picano, in his words, had ‘exposed what I called the dirty laundry of gay life,’” The Guardian noted.
Picano founded Sea Horse Press, the nation’s first gay-focused publishing house, in 1976 and remained at its helm until 1995. He cofounded the Gay Presses of New York in 1981 and was its editor in chief until 1995.
In 1980-1981, Picano was a key member of a salon of gay writers known as the Violet Quill Club. Its other members were Andrew Holleran, Edmund White, Michael Grumley, Robert Ferro, George Whitmore, and Christopher Cox. They read one another’s works and discussed issues relevant to gay fiction.
“The Violet Quill would have been forgotten if it hadn’t brought together several of the most important gay literary figures of the period at the birth of a definable gay literature,” David Bergman wrote in The Gay & Lesbian Review in 2021. The success of their works and those of others “showed publishers that by bringing out gay-themed works they would not be dragged into court for obscenity and, of greater importance, they could make money,” Bergman continued.
Picano’s later novels included Like People in History (1995), The Book of Lies (1998), and Onyx (2001). Short story collections included Looking Glass Lives, The New York Years, and Tales: From a Distant Planet, and he wrote poetry collected in The Deformity Lover and Other Poems and Window Elegies.
He also wrote memoirs including Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children, Men Who Loved Me, and A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay, and the plays Immortal, One O'Clock Jump, The Bombay Trunk, and Ingoldsby. He edited anthologies and contributed to many newspapers and magazines, including The Advocate and Out. He authored the nonfiction book The Joy of Gay Sex with Charles Silverstein.
His honors include the Lambda Literary Foundation's Lifetime Achievement/Pioneer Award, the PEN/Syndicated Fiction Award, and the Tennessee Williams Festival's Violet Quill Life Achievement Award.
Alyson Books, owned in the late 1990s and early 2000s by the same company as The Advocate, published Looking Glass Lives, The New York Years, Onyx, and a paperback reprint of The Book of Lies. “I edited Felice’s stunning and evocative novel Onyx in the early 2000s,” Angela Brown, then editor in chief at Alyson, told The Advocate. “He was a gentle and funny soul with a fantastically witty streak. He was also a mentor and friend to many authors and made an indelible impression on me for his kindness, grace, and supreme talent.”
Other friends and associates are sharing fond memories of Picano. “So saddened to learn that our friend Felice Picano has passed away,” Christopher Oakley, an academic, artist, and husband of former Advocate and Out editor Bruce Steele, wrote on Facebook. “A pioneering gay poet, writer, and publisher, Felice knew just about everybody and had a deep well of entertaining stories to tell. I remember one in which Felice was going over a manuscript with Cary Grant. Felice showed Grant a photo of actor Randolph Scott and Grant hanging out on a pool diving board and said the pose was suggestive. Grant replied, ‘Oh yes. I was gay back then.’” Oakley painted Picano’s portrait for his "Faces of Change" project, focusing on impactful LGBTQ+ people, when the author visited him and Steele in Asheville, N.C.
Christopher Oakley's painting of Felice PicanoChristopher Oakley
"He was amazing to talk to because he knew everybody in the ’60s and ’70s," Steele told The Advocate. "He had many a story to share. He was proud of his position in the gay literary pantheon. ... He was just so down-to-earth and such a nice guy."
Douglas Sadownick, an author being advised by Picano, also posted about him on Facebook. “When someone you know so close to your heart dies, it leaves such a hole, and yet at the same time you can feel them still saying nurturing things to you, which hurts even worse,” Sadownick wrote. “It will take me a long time to come to terms with Felice's role in my life. Like me, he had a foster son, whom I met two nights ago — a great guy, Dave — but I'm pretty sure Felice took me under his wing decades ago. It took us until these last few years to grow more conscious of the gay family love we shared.”
“For the last two years, I have sent him pages on Sunday nights,” Sadownick continued. “He made me dinner Monday night — an amazing and caring cook. As we'd start to eat, he'd let me know what worked and what didn’t. Maybe he was more of a director. Get rid of that digression. Add more here. Once in a while, he said, ‘Marvellous.’”
Picano had lost many friends during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and “was happy to make it to 81,” Sadownick noted. He had suffered from cancer and undergone a hip replacement, but remained “as self-reliant as they come … refused nursing care when he was well enough to, and took his cane to walk the streets of West Hollywood.”
Rebel Satori is bringing out two books from Picano, short stories set in the universe of the City on a Star trilogy from its Queer Space imprint and A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay from the Library of Homosexual Congress.
"Felice Picano will be deeply missed, but his words will continue to resonate within us all. May his words and memory continue to be a blessing," Rebel Satori's post concluded.
