Onyx

by Felice Picano

Book Overview

What is the measure of a man's life? Success? Love? Friendship. Ray Henriques has them all, and more, but lately its not enough. But it is not just Ray who is on a quest for deeper meaning and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555836402
• ISBN13: 9781555836405
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Alyson Books
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Onyx is a Jewel

Felice Picano's work ranges so differently from book to book, so I was curious to see why he said in a reading event that it was "a difficult book" for him to write. While AIDS novels may have become passe, this one isn't just that, but covers the ground of painful hospital scenes, and how it and other tragedies disintegrate a happy extended family. While the mother-in-law character embodies all that is evil in homophobia, and some may consider her a stereotype, I found her all too realistic for the era. The love affair between Ray and studly "straight" Mike is both erotic and touching, capturing the embodiment of the type of men that fill New York and cause quite a distraction for gay guys. Picano dispenses with some of the cleverness of his earlier work, and has written a touching saga of love and loss. It's also a bit of a love note to New York, and perhaps a reflection of his own move from NYC to Los Angeles. With all the music references (the narrator Ray runs a classical music publishing company), it's too bad there isn't an accompanying soundtrack!

A Return to Creative Story Telling

Felice Picano is considered to be one of gay literature's greatest assetts. I go back and forth on that judgement, mainly because his last book, Book of Lies, was so awful! It read like a tossed out script from some Aaron Spelling melodrama!But with Onyx, you will find Picano in truly great form. The novel is crisp story telling that gets to th heart of its characters. Of love about to be lost (yes, AIDS) and the journey to go on with one's life in the face of adversity. There are many surprise turns hear that one will read and find yourself screaming in shock. They all work. There is nothing that is contrived about this story. While some of the "love" scenes may be something you feel you have resd before, the novel goes further to get to the heart of its characters. It doesn't just give you names to remember, but people to identify with and love or cherish them as you see fit.

Picano Does It Again

This is a moving, heartfelt, skillfully written book, with AIDS as one of many themes. But this is not an "AIDS book." It is a book about love, loss, passion, and what drives us in life. What are our motivations? What is most important in life? There are passages in this book that are so beautifully written that my entire body was covered with chills; I felt emotionally drained and vibrantly alive at the same time. This is what the best art does--solicits both a physical and mental reaction. ONYX, certainly, does this; it's one of Picano's best books to date.

Polished to a gleam!

ONYX is an amazingly fine novel from a writer who seems to grow with each published work. Though many may overlook this latest book as merely another Violet Quill opus chronicling gay life, this book is more than a solid story, more than a beautifully written novel, more than many other books in this genre. This novel is an elegantly written exploration of the quest of the individual in the 21st Century - the immediacy and inexplicable choices that death makes, how individuals deal with genetic agar plates peppered by the vagaries of childhood environments/family history/social mores/chance encounters, why we become puppets of our stage play of id/ego/superego. Picano has created thoroughly 3-dimensional characters who leap off the page as both good and bad acquaintances we've all encountered. There seems to be much autobiographical material here: how else could the author know the complexities of his characters unless he'd lived in their skins of mixed in ther minds! ONYX, the title, refers to a life long thwarted desire for an unobtainable object (an onyx ring) that becomes available only after Charon guides the main character across the river Styx. Love, relationships, family, finding physical solace in a surrogate sexual fling, the vileness of AIDS and the accompanying tragedies encountered at the demise of a loved one whose family has never accepted the life of the victim, the true meaning of friendship, the equal vileness of cancer, of vehicular deaths, of family hate gone wild - all are components of this book. There are surprising elements that inform us of practices unknown to most of us (were you aware that you could watch a cremation with all its gothic elements?), as well as pages of simply lyrical prose becoming poetry. Picano knows how to create atmosphere, how to lead us through the complexities of nature's erratic moves, and most of all he knows how to keep our attention focused in reading a book that becomes addictive. For those who have not had the pleasure of reading Picano, jump in and ready yourself for a ride you'll not forget. From another artistic viewpoint this book design, cover, printing choices, page layout are the work of an extraordinary craftsman. This reader finds ONYX to be his finest novel to date.....and waiting for what is next!