A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay: A Memoir

by Felice Picano

Book Overview

The third volume in this memoir series, A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay is Picano's beautifully rendered portrait of gay life on Fire Island, the mythical locus of so much innocence lost and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571199135
• ISBN13: 9780571199136
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 270 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

As engaging as any novel could be, but actually a memoir!

Being the rabid Picano fan that I am, it's not always easy to consider myself unbiased. However, since I thoroughly disliked his Like People in History, I feel I can be more objective now. That said, A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay: A Memoir is amazing. It is a thoroughly engaging book that takes us on an interesting journey of one man's life that is terribly full and robust. However, like many a Southern author (which Mr. Picano is NOT), Picano manages to make this book feel like a leisurely wander, allowing us to discover the nuances he wants us to realize at his pace and not at the pace of our reading. It's a trick not easily done. This is a fine book about Picano's time spent on Fire Island and the people he knew and loved during that time. I highly recommend this book.

Picano's Finest Hour

Although I have read most all of Felice Picano's books, I find myself returning to A HOUSE ON THE OCEAN, A HOUSE ON THE BAY most frequently - sometimes just for recalling his atmospheric descriptions of places with and without people, sometimes just to re-visit Fire Island - a place I've never been but that has become for me a solid symbol of East Coast escape. Picano's memoirs at times are overwhelming: how could one man have experienced life so richly and tranposed it to words for us, the voyeur readers? Perhaps the places and people he so succinctly describes are bathed in poetic license, but that only makes the moments in between interpersonal encounters pregnant pauses. Picano has managed to keep us entertained book after book and I eagerly await the release of ONYX.

So far this volume remains my favorite

Checking as to when the next novel by Felice Picano is due out, I realized that though I have read all his books I have never written about them in this forum. Strange, but understandable when I look back over all the experiences of reading his work. Picano writes in the manner of long nighttime walks with a close friend: he shares quips and bedazzling escapades and memories of lost friends like few others. His stories are at once funny, tender, bitchy (in a way that few can imitate), and just plain good stories. In A HOUSE ON THE OCEAN, A HOUSE ON THE BAY he seems to have paused in the midst of memories very special to him...or at least his characters are so acutely drawn that they seem like pages from a diary. If you've ever wondered what Fire Island was like at its peak, here it is. Wonderful tales populated by people you'd like to know....or at least have observed! Felice Picano keeps treating us to fine writing and I eagerly await ONYX!

Oh my, this is my favorite book of all time

I am Felice Picano, or certainly am living his life. Well, sort of. When I read straight through this book--a library copy, I am going to buy it now--I said to myself and to my friends that I loved the book so much because of how much I see of him in me, including that he was also born on February 22nd, that we are both gay, and that I am struggling, as he was, to write. If any book can give me inspiration to live my dream, it is "A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay." Bravo to Picano for writing a book that was written for me.

The best of Picano's memoirs to date. Absolutely compelling.

Frankly, when I got to the final 100 pages, on Gay Pride Night, no less, I was so compelled to finish the book that I stayed up all night to finish it and then pack for a business trip to London. Picking up his life in the mid-1970s, Picano gives an account of post-liberation, book store jobs, love affairs, friendships, and the wisdom of time and difference. Once again, it is split in parts. The first details a tortured menage a trois in which Felice is the one wanted "for his mind." He works as a book store manager and plans a career as a writer.In the second part, he discusses the Fire Island scene, the "Gay 2000" who influenced gay culture and the broader culture at large, and his job at a fancier bookstore--unnamed by recognizable as Rizzoli.Picano, more here than elsewhere, comes into contact with more recognizable celebrities--wide-ranging from Rose Kennedy to Bette Midler (in her bathhouse singer days).Picano also reflects on his position as a survivor--the remaining 2% left after the AIDS crisis devestates the Gay 2000, and his role now as a witness. Also apparent is Picano's fine education, cultural appreciation, love of writing, determined confidence, and perceptive mind. This is the book that sent me into a summer of reading whatever Picano books I could find. It's hard to imagine anyone--gay or straight--not getting something out of this memoir. Truly a voice of his generation, and for future ones as wellYeah, I liked the book. :-))