Bram's fourth novel dramatizes 35 years in the life of a career diplomat who comes out of the closet; the backdrop consists of political intrigue in the Philippines during the Marcos era. The result is an authoritative, very readable (and mostly mainstream) novel. Jim Goodall joins the Foreign Service in the early 1950's, at the height of the McCarthy era, when suspected homosexuals are hounded from the service as security risks.... The personal narrative is rounded out by Goodall's sister's family, particularly by niece Meg, who loses a boyfriend to "Uncle Jim"...but stays close to him. Bram rotates between personal instances and political ones – Goodall is serving as a diplomat in difficult times, and Bram evocatively records Philippine and Vietnamese crises in convincing fashion.... Some of this is programmatic, but Bram convincingly re-creates a historical moment from a gay perspective.