[APPLAUSE]
A lot of you here.
Thank you so much for that lovely introduction.
I mean, it's so hard now to read because who
could live up to that.
But thank you, Emi and Kate and Patri and Ander
and everybody for bringing me in.
I'm just so excited to be reading with T. Clutch whose
work I'm such a fan of.
And it's so great to see all of you.
It really is slightly nerve wracking to see all of you.
Hi.
I am going to read--
can you hear OK, or I doing, like the, not that ASMR thing,
is that happening?
[LAUGHTER]
Extra.
It's the bonus material.
OK.
So I'm going to read a few short sections to give you
a sort of ambient sense of where I'm up to in the book.
And I won't start at the beginning,
but the first section will be close to the beginning.
And what you need to know is that it's 1993,
it's Iowa City, go Hawks, and Paul
is about to come out as a shapeshifter
to his best friend, Jane.
"Paul chafed at the second coming out.
At being in again at all.
And so suddenly.
'Was it endless', he thought, 'like Russian nesting dolls
with a tiny solid center?'
He'd begun to read Anne Rice and Octavia Butler books.
Maybe he was a vampire or an immortal body snatcher.
With the intensity with which he had once
read James Baldwin and Edmund White,
he checked out stacks of videotapes--
The Lost Boys, Cat People, The Company
of Wolves from the public library.
Looking for something, anything, that
might speak to his condition.
The closest thing he found was Orlando,
but Paul wasn't some Countess who
could just instruct the servants in his castle to be cool.
He had to think logistically.
He'd sensed his own nascent malleability for years,
since childhood.
At first, he'd assumed all gays were like him
and had quietly decided not to mention they could choose.
But he had pieced together over time,
without revealing too much, that he was even
to the gays, a freak.
He was alone in this world.
He regarded other gays now with mild condescension.
He had gone through the door in the last adventure in Narnia,
and they were like poor Susan with her nylons
stuck on the train.
Although what was wrong with nylons and lipstick
and invitations, Paul had not quite worked out.
For instance, Jane was a Susan, but she was also his friend.
And she'd been starting to suspect something,
Paul could tell.
He decided to confide in her.
Maybe it would feel good?
Maybe he could relive those high wire blasts of relief
he'd felt in his previous big gay milestones."
And here, you'll note that this is my first novel.
And I have included a very long footnote
that when I go to read, I always have
to have an awkward disclaimer, and then segue awkwardly back
into the text.
So that's what's happening now.
OK, these are the previous big gay milestones.
"First admission to self--
at nine, after hearing Ritchie Spagnoletti
call the music teacher Mr. Plummer a queer.
First admission to another human being--
freshman year of high school, phone
call to the Albany crisis hot line
while his parents were at dinner and Ari was asleep.
First admission to an actual friend--
Heather Federson, senior year of high school.
First gay t-shirt-- a white shirt with the words
'Act Up', which he wore under his uniform button down
the last month of high school.
Or maybe the Keith Haring 'Radiating Baby' shirt
Heather Federson brought him back
from her weekend in the city.
One of the two.
First gay book--
A Boy's Own Story, snuck read in the Troy public library
at age 12.
First gay friend-- Justin Rosenblum, though Paul
denied the friendship at the time to anyone who asked.
First gay handjob received-- abortive,
from Justin Rosenblum, junior year
of high school in Justin Rosenblum's bedroom
with Free Nelson Mandela on the record player.
First gay handjob given-- prematurely
concluded, to Justin Rosenblum, junior year of high school.
Also in Justin Rosenblum's bedroom with Free Nelson
Mandela on the record player.
First partial blowjob received-- from Justin Rosenblum,
two weeks before Paul's graduation,
in the Rosenblum family pool house.
First blowjob given-- to Johnny Palazola, summer
after high school.
After three years of Johnny gay baiting
Paul, in the woods at the end of the cul-de-sac where
Paul lived.
First ear piercing-- left ear, silver hoop.
First weekend of college--
1989.
First gay kiss--
Justin Rosenblum, homecoming weekend visit
to Paul at SUNY Binghamton.
Discovery of HQ76-- first year of college, Bartle Library,
Binghamton.
First group of gay friends--
at Binghamton, the motley gang of sincere, pimply, waxy
skinned boys and girls who gathered giddily
in each other's dorm rooms for John Waters or Joan Crawford
film fests.
First gay pride parade--
New York, 1991.
First official boyfriend-- Tony Pinto, New York,
July to August, 1991.
First anal sex given-- to Tony Pinto, New York, August, 1991.
First anal sex received-- from Tony Pinto, Iowa City,
December, 1991."
So now we're back.
So awkward, right?
Every time.
But what do you do?
I guess you just don't write footnotes.
But you need them.
'"Maybe if Jane knew,' Paul thought,
'she could help him take better pictures for his zine.'
Back at Paul's house, Jane smoked a clove cigarette
coolly, tapping her ash into one of Christopher's floral print
teacups as she watched Paul take off his shirt
and unbuttoned his jeans' first two buttons.
'I seen you naked, Paul, and it doesn't do anything for me.'
She sat back on the futon, narrowing her eyes
like a stockbroker at a titty bar,
and blew a series of spicy smoke rings.
'Just wait,' he said, concentrating.
He thumbed his jeans and briefs down to mid thigh,
exposing his pussy to the cold air, his ass clenched a little.
'Dude,' said Jane, 'you're tucking.
Nice tucking.'
'No,' Paul said.
He pulled his labia apart to expose the shiny red skin,
his clit, that extra slitted hole
whose name he did not know.
Jane, for once, had nothing to say.
He extended a finger to Jane's nose.
'Does that smell like penis to you?'
Jane sniffed his finger, frowning.
Paul let his concentration lapse,
let his clit expand back into cock, his hole
close up into taint, his labia drop heavily into nut sack.
Jane stared, still completely silent.
'You can't tell anybody,' he said.
He patted his package through his briefs,
and pulled his jeans back up.
'Of course not,' said Jane. 'If anyone finds out about this,
you'll be a total guinea pig.'
Paul could practically see the gears turning in her head.
She was getting excited about some thought she was having.
'Yeah,' he said emphatically, 'and that would suck.'
Paul walked out of his bedroom and rummaged
in the refrigerator.
He preferred to hang out at Jane's house
where there was food.
He located a single can of Squirt,
which he bought for the name.
He held it up to Jane, and she shook her head.
'But I actually do want to go to Michigan in August,' he said.
'Don't you want to go with me now, we'll have so much fun.'
Jane picked up her backpack, heavy with library books
she was taking home to keep unopened next to her bed
for the next eight months."
Yeah, she's a graduate student.
[LAUGHTER]
"'I'll think about it,' she said.
'I don't want to get my ass kicked by a gang of Indigo
Girls' worshipping, softball playing, wo-per-
daughters with mullets and fanny packs.
They're extremely particular about their womon only space.'
'We won't get in trouble,' said Paul, 'they'll never know.'
Jane looked over the top of her sunglasses.
'Maybe,' she said."