THE BOOK of LIES
by Felice Picano

Available at Amazon.com
Print: 440 pgs • 978-1-951092-32-0
E-book at Kindle, Kobo, Nook and Apple

Felice Picano has birthed three dozen or so books – extraordinary in a kaleidoscopic way, covering fiction, memoir, plays, poetry – which never fail to entertain. He has a voice, a way to get under the skin, which one learns to embrace and welcome. His writing is jolly: even in situations of conflict, he's smiling.

THE BOOK OF LIES is a "literary mystery": a researcher tries to tease out the truth of The Purple Circle by mucking through manuscripts, author interviews and buried records. An homage and sendup of the real life Violet Quill – seven New York writers who met in each others' homes regularly to share works in progress which itself is celebrating its 40th anniversary – makes for a splendid page turner. Picano has a gift for creating believable characters one instantly feels right at home with. (It's remarkable his work has not been turned into movies.)

ReQueered Tales is honored to reissue THE BOOK OF LIES, our third work of this author; LIKE PEOPLE IN HISTORY (Jan 2020) and ONYX (Aug 2019) are already in print and digital. This edition includes a foreword by David Bergman, the scholar who documented the Violet Quill, with an afterword by Felice himself.

Much honored, in 2009, the Lambda Literary Foundation awarded Picano its Lifetime Achievement/Pioneer Award.

“Based on Picano's involvement with the Violet Quill Club (which included Edmund White and Andrew Holleran), this is an absorbing Henry James-style comedy of manners about how even when some writers find their way out of the closet, others still get left behind.” — The Mail on Sunday

“... funny, dark, sexy, shocking, and yes, smart. Set in the near future (‘decades after Stonewall’), the novel tells of a young scholar trying to make his academic bones on the literary bodies of the ‘Purple Circle’. Picano skewers the pedagogically pretentious with ease and wit. A wonderful novel, with some of Picano's best writing.” — Bay Area Reporter