Patrick Ryan (Buckeye) feat. Rabih Alameddine, Guest Gay Reader

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:34):
Hello and welcome to Gay'sReading.
I'm your host, Jason Blitman,and on today's episode I have
Patrick Ryan talking to me abouthis book Buckeye.
And then my guest, gay reader isRabih Alameddine, and he talks
to me about his book.
The true, true story of Raja,the gullible and his mother.

(00:55):
Um, I have so much fun with bothof them.
Both of their bios are in theshow notes.
Both of their books are out now.
Buckeye is.
Is this month's read with JennaBook Club Pick and of course
next week on Gay's reading isEliana Ramage and her book is
this Month's Reese's Book ClubPick.
Lots of book club going on thesedays.

(01:17):
Speaking of book club, the Gay'sReading Book Club through ura,
you could still join for themonth of September.
That book is The Sunflower Boysby Sam Wachman.
On September 15th, our.
October book will be announced,so keep an eye out for that.
I'm super, super excited.
though I, I can hint that thatbook comes out today, so it

(01:41):
comes out on September 9th, eventhough.
Uh, it'll be announced onSeptember 15th.
And what else?
If you like what you're hearing,share us with your friends.
follow us on social media.
We are at Gays Reading onInstagram, and if you can like
and subscribe wherever you getyour podcasts, that really helps
other folks find Gays reading ifyou're new.

(02:01):
I am so happy to have you.
Welcome.
There's a massive backlog of.
Of author episodes that you canlisten to, and I am excited to
share those with you.
Excited to, for you to checkthose out and if you have been,
uh, hanging around here for along time.
Thanks as always for stickingaround.
I think those are all the thingsto share and enjoy my

(02:25):
conversations with Patrick andRabih.

Jason Blitman (02:29):
We don't need any of it for the actual episode.
No one needs to know where youlive.

Patrick Ryan (02:33):
That's true.
Yeah.
I just dumped out a lot ofpersonal

Once they read your book, they're gonna wanna
come stalk you.
Oh my God.
Because I'm staying at an Airbnbright now, I'm not in my normal
space.
I'm, it's hard to regulatetemperature.
It's humid here so I'm justlike, I'm I'm half sweating, but
I'm also a little bit cold.

It's I'm all, it's all good with me.
And I won't judge you by yourdecor'cause it's not yours, so
it's all good.
It's Airbnb

I call this TJ Maxx art.
It might as well say live,laugh, love

Yes, it probably does

it.
Prob right in, in littlescribble and little, cursive at
the bottom that someone, hasprinted on mass.
Anyway.
Yeah, no, not me.
I don't ever have fake plantsanywhere.

I can't tell.
It's fake now.
I know it's fake,

Now, I'm devastated about it.
No,

just got back from a really cute, similarly
decorated place last weekend.

Oh, good.
Celebrating.
You have a lot to celebrate.

Yeah.
I know.
I highly recommend.
Having a book come out rightwhen you're having a big round
birthday, it's, it reallydistracts you from any other
kind of thinking.

Yeah.

Yeah.
You know, But I'm happy to behere.
I'm happy to.
I'm happy to be the age that Iam,

yeah.
Good.
But we are here to talk aboutBuckeye.
Okay.
For the people.
For the listeners, for thewatchers, however many people I
ever get watching this.
What is your elevator pitch forBuckeye?

Okay.
The elevator pitch is thatBuckeye is an epic length story
that spans 40 years and set in asmall town in Ohio, and it
begins at the moment of the.
Allied Victory in Europe duringWorld War ii, and it tells a

(04:24):
story of two families whoselives become intertwined and
compounded by one bad decisionand one big secret that shapes
them and shapes the nextgeneration to come.
And it has a background ofseveral different wars and all
of the turbulent events of.

(04:46):
to actually six decades, butfour main decades of of the 20th
century.

Yeah.
I don't know how you're gonnafeel about me saying this, but

Okay.

haven't seen Forrest Gump in a very long
time.
So take this with a grain ofsalt.
But what I, the feeling that Iremember having watched Forrest
Gump is the feeling that I hadreading this book.

Okay.
I see.
I think I see not because of thelife as a box of chocolates
mentality, but because of thesweep.

The sweep, the general time period, the
intersection of lives.
I, oh, I was like, oh, they, ifthere was a festival about a
time period and a vibe, theywould be at the same festival.

I will take that.
I like that.
Yeah.
I mean it, not that this, notthat I have my characters
interacting with famoushistorical

No.
It is there Not the same in anyway, shape or form other than
vibe.
I just, that was my, I was like,oh, this is,

I have also not seen it since it came out.
But yeah.

So that's all very Americana specific time.
Anyway I didn't know what aBuckeye looked like until
reading this.
I, of course.
Googled and was like, oh, that'swhy those peanut butter dipped
in chocolate.
Things are called Buckeyes.
'cause they look literallyexactly like a Buckeye.

yes.
This, here they are.
Buckeye Candies.
This is like productendorsement.
But

I know They should sponsor this episode.

Yeah, it's the Anthony Thomas Chocolates
company and and I found theseonline and they were the ones
that I could find to orderonline that didn't need
refrigerated.
The really fancy ones thatpeople make by hand, you can
order, but they take freezerpacks and you have to sign an
agreement that says, I know thatI live in a hot place, or, the
planet's melting or something.
And but yeah, the the Buckeyechocolates, I never knew they

(06:56):
were an actual nut.
I just knew they were the.

the chocolate thing, right?
Yes.
I didn't know they were nutsuntil reading this book.
And then I googled the nuts.
Oh.

I think there are

I went on a Buckeye

and didn't know they were, didn't know they were
candy.
The journey I can tell you thejourney to the title but,

Sure.
No, we, I don't want, no, I wantpeople to read it and interpret
it themselves because I don'twant you to tell us, but I will
say I, after reading the book,listened to a conversation
between you and Anne Patchett.
Talking about the Dutch Houseand you asking her about why
there's not a house on the coverof the book.
And of course I notice thatthere's not a Buckeye on the

(07:32):
cover of this

that's such a yes.
I love where you're going.

So I'm just pointing that out.

Yeah.
Okay.
This is a great I think,interesting thing.
I do remember her telling methat.
About, about not wanting that.
And I do remember over theyears, oh, I remember reading an
interview once with say, chipKidd and him saying his saying
that one of the things he triesto do is not be literal.

(08:01):
So it, if a book is called.
X, there isn't gonna be an X onthe cover.
And that, and she underscoredthat.
When she told me that.
And when they were starting tojust think about ideas for the
cover for this book, the, myin-house editor asked me if I
had any, anything I didn't wantto see, and I gave them a list.

(08:25):
I can't

long was the list?

It was at least six or eight things.
One of the very first one

was a Buckeye.
Yeah.

A Buckeye.

though it would of course be super awkward if
the book was called X and therewas a Y on the cover.

but wouldn't that be interesting?

You're right.
Yes, you're right.
It would make you wonder y

X novel?
And there's a giant Y on the Y.
One of the things I said I justwent ahead and proactively.
Went places so that theywouldn't and one of the, I said,
please no no, no little planesin the background in the sky.

war, no plane.
Yeah.

Which is very, you're almost tripping over
these images and it, I don'tknow, it's just, and also no
Ferris wheels.
I said, please don't, there is aFerris wheel in the book, but I
said, please don't.
And.
I think I, I probably said noflag, no American flags.
No.

Now is not a good time for an American flag.
Yeah.
No.

And so they, and and then actually they I was
prescriptive and said, this isthe sort of thing I envision.
And then they did that.
Very thing.
And I looked at it and Ithought, this is exactly what I
asked for.
And it's beautiful and I do notlike it for this book.
So I

Ha.

and said, thank you.
You did exactly what I asked.
And I, and now I know that thisis not what we want.
So they, we just moved into afew different directions.
But this cover was designed byAnna Kotchman, who's done the
last four or five ElizabethStrout covers.

Oh, cool.

and I love it so much.
I just, I feel so fortunate tohave it.

So I realized that I'd never said, Patrick
Ryan, welcome to Gay's Reading.
So eight minutes in.
Welcome to Gay's Reading.

I'm happy to be here.

I know we just hit the ground running.
Speaking of the Ann Patchett, I,she was a guest on gay's reading
and I looked at the, I did acalculation'cause I was curious.
She told me about this book 271days ago.

Wow.

have been waiting for this moment for 271 days.
So you have a lot to live up to,so

That's, that

turn your sound machines on.

it is a testament to, it's a partial testament to
how long it took me to.
To write it

Yeah.
This was at the point where Ididn't, I got a galley not long
after I talked to her.
So it's also a testament to thejourney that is the book
publishing process.
Okay.
The book opens with characternamed Cal and his friend talking
about how.
We're each meant for a specialthing.

(11:22):
What do you think that is foryou?

What's my special thing?

Yeah.

Damn.

You've had 10 minutes of warmup, Patrick?

I've had 271 days to

Yes.
Come on.

I did not.
Anticipate that I, it's just thehere's my special thing is
creating a little safe space formyself that I can regularly
crawl into to observe and writeabout the world.

(12:02):
That my special thing, I thinkis always, since I was about 16,
has been just realizing that wasa place that I had the most
control, where I had the mostcontrol and where there weren't
any, I don't mean to be overlydramatic or anything, but there
were, there wasn't any kind ofbully in any sense in that
little space.
And I and right now it's thislittle space where I'm sitting,

(12:24):
and this is just a gray slab ofan IKEA table.
In a corner, but this is this ismy little golden spot where I
just know that at least I canand if you don't have a contract
and you're just writing a bookand the world isn't necessarily
waiting for, you've got a lot oftime to be comfortable in your
safe space.

Yeah,

So I don't know if that's much of an answer, but
yeah, I just realized early on,and it used to be drawing when I
was about, when I was younger,it was I wanted to be an
illustrator, an animator.
And that was

happened to that?

face.
I think what happened was that Igot into high school and I had
two, there were only two artteachers in my high school, and
they were married and I didn'tlike them.
Personality clash.
I don't even remember exactlywhy, but it was a personality
clash.
And at the same time my highschool English teacher was
really.

(13:18):
Encouraging me.
She was noticing that I wasreally liking all the creative
writing assignments and she waspushing me.
And I just remember this kind ofshift away, and it happened
right around, let's say duringmy 16th year where I realized
no, and now I'm, and I wastotally fine with it because I
was just replacing it withsomething else.

Would you ever say write a children's book
where you both write it andillustrate it?

I have thought about that because, of course
Anne has trailblazed that way inour friendship by coming up,
writing these wonderful books.

about her.
I'm talking about you.
You had asked once upon a timeaspirations of being an
illustrator,

yeah, I know.
And she did ask, she said to meonce, you should illustrate.
I don't think I'm, that, I don'tthink I'm good enough

what does that even mean?
Have

Because I look at children's books,

No.

at them, they're wonderful.
Like I don't have theillustrations in children's
books tell, have a narrativesensibility to them.
That is fantastic.
Usually there's and I don't havethat in my wheelhouse, in my
toolbox to each page.
I just, I feel like.
It's narratively tipping towardthe next and toward the next.

(14:36):
And I think there's a lot ofsubtleties going on there, and I
just don't, I would not want toclaim to, it would be like, it
would be like if I said, oh, Iwanna start writing poetry.
I can write, it's no.
Don't do it.

Listen, this is, I like we're giving her too much
airtime, like screw her.
Who's she?
But I do say all the time thatwhen Anne was on the show, she
said to me she said.
You are the story you tellyourself.
And so if you tell yourselfyou're not something, then
you're not gonna be that thing.
And I have taken that with meand I've shared that with other

(15:07):
people.
So I'm taking your friend ofmany years's advice and putting
it and just giving it right backto you.
But

love this.

enough about her.

Yeah, she's gonna love that too.
This is great.
Thank you.
Phoning it in for

Phoning it in.
Who does she think she is?
But Jesus, come on you.
You wrote a book about a specialthing you didn't think people
were gonna ask you about that.
Okay?
Go sleep on that and you'll come

but see,

for the next one.

but yeah, but it's like that's a whole reason to
write a book about othercharacters, other people doing
other things

Yes.
Then you have to do press aboutit.

Yeah, I know.
I know.
Okay.
I need a special thing.

Speaking of, emmett is a, in the book, the
term is a keeper, I believe, ormaybe I've put the word keeper
on him.
He's never referred to as ahoarder.

Oh yeah.

He's a keeper of things.
What would your thing be?

Oh yeah.
That's really good.
I just did not see that allthese were gonna turn around and
come

Come on.

Certainly books from long ago, like the book
that, the first book that Ithink got me started writer when
I was 16.
That came along at that time andgot me.
Realizing, oh my gosh.
Writing can do.
This was the collected storiesof Mark Twain that my

(16:40):
grandparents gave me on my 16thbirthday.
So that was how many, what's 60minus 16?

Uhhuh

40.
44.

44 years ago.
The other yeah.

44 years ago today.

years ago today.
Wow.

have that book on the, on my shelf.
Like that's like that kind ofthing.
I wanna keep I used, before Imoved to Manhattan, I had
typewriters.
I had about, I think I was up toabout eight or nine and then I
gave them all away except forone manual typewriter when I
moved up here.

Before we hit record, I, now I know that
you've been in Manhattan for avery long time at this point.
How was it hard to get rid ofthem?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I.
I did the best thing I couldthink to do.
I gave each one away to a friendwho probably didn't want it but
I did, and a couple of them, Iactually, it was down to the
wire when I was moving and Iactually left them on their
front steps with a note typedinto them just and for all I

(17:45):
know, they just put them rightinto the recycling or something,
but.

Whatever.

That's, but that's where they went.

That's a fun, like short story, someone who
leaves typewriters with notesaround the city.

Yeah.

The book is so deeply rooted in family,
parents, and childrenrelationships.
What was your, what was thatjourney like for you?
What was your relationship likewith your family, or is what is
your relationship like with yourfamily?

I was the youngest of three and I was the only
product of the second marriage.
So my, I grew up with a brotherand sister who every summer
would go off to we were raisedin Florida, but they went off to
Virginia, Cape Canaveral,Merritt Island.

oh, I grew up in a suburb of Fort Lauderdale.

Okay.
Across the way.
Yeah.

yeah.

And.

so you were growing up in Florida.

Yeah.
And so they would, they were, Iwas the youngest and they would
go off to Virginia every summer.
So I, which was interesting,just every summer I became an
only kid for a couple of monthsand I had a good, and have a
good relationship with mymother, who has always been very

(19:00):
encouraging and had.
Had the opposite kind ofrelationship with my father, And
I always thought that was abalance that one could work with
is one who encouraged one whoabsolutely did not better than
some people get.
And and they split up when I was23, yeah, I know.

(19:26):
'cause I would've thought bythen that it might not have ever
happened if it

No weird is that my parents split up when I was
23.

Oh, so maybe you thought the same thing.
That

They should have long, they should have gotten
divorced long before

I thought that, but they, since they hadn't, I
thought really

Yeah.

don't you wanna just start coasting?
But no.
And so that and then they, andthey left Florida, so it's I
don't go back, I don't keep upwith really anybody who's still
there.
I have a brother in Florida butI don't, I'm not in much touch
with him regularly.
It, it was nothing like what'sin the book in, in, in any way,

(20:04):
shape or form.
Yeah.
There there's nothing in therethat's from my.
I don't, I, except for likelittle tiny tidbits that pop up
in fiction.
There's nothing, no big element.
I don't think that's from my

Do you think any of it was.
I can't really think of anotherword other than this, and I
think it's disgusting.
Do you think there was anelement of it that was
aspirational?
Were you writing a childhoodthat you wanted to have?

Yes.

Mm.

That is a really excellent question, and the
answer is yes.
Yeah.
It's a little bit like analysis,but uh, I, I,

tell me about your relationship with.

I didn't anytime, I think anytime I write about
fathers, Am writing about someother kind, so it's and I'm.
Probably not gravitating towardwriting about rotten ones.
I don't know.
It's an interesting question,but yeah.
Aspirational.

(21:02):
And there's certainly an elementof the people in the book for as
much as things fall apart onthem and the, and all of the
mistakes that some of them make.
They also do some growth andfiguring some things out and
meaning comes in where a lot ofquestions were, and it's, to my

(21:27):
thinking, it's of course it'sfiction.
So it's a little neater thanlife.
It's a little more shaped, butit's it's much smoother than
anything I've experienced.
And that's probably true for alot of people.

Yeah.
Even there are elements in thebook that are specific to the
generation and passed downthrough the, these generations.
I will unpack that.
Like I built things with my dad.
I made a soapbox racer with mydad.

You did.
Oh.

Which comes up in the book, but I had a terrible
dad.
He's, he was not good at being adad, but there was this
generational thing of this iswhat we're supposed to do.
Fathers are supposed to buildthings with their sons, and so
let's do it.
I was very lucky in thatsometimes the thing we were
building was like a puppettheater and he embraced the kid

(22:27):
that I was, that didn'tnecessarily mean, I'm, I.
I will say all the time he is agood guy, but a bad dad and, is
a product of his generation anda product of his parenting.
And, I like see the traumalineage, but he just doesn't
know how to tap into it himself.
Whatever.
I'm still removing myself fromthe situation'cause I don't need

(22:49):
to be a part of it.
But I I was like, oh really?
Clocking this thing as, it wasalmost this weird dad trope of a
time and I was like, Jesus, wewere just doing this thing that
was like supposed to be,

And new soapbox raced.

yeah, I was a cub scout.

Yeah, that's cool.
Okay

it really wasn't though,

it wasn't well 'cause

because that wasn't what I wanted,

Oh, I got you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You wanted it to be in thepuppet theater.
You

Exactly.
Yeah.

I we had I didn't do soapbox racers, although
there's a scene that was in thebook up until the penultimate
draft, a memory of Everett andCal building the Racer in the
book.
It's just referred to as amemory, but there was the actual
flashback and it was the wholething about building it and the

(23:41):
racer.
And it got cut.
And it is an outtake in the ukthe Waterstone special edition

Oh,

that, that

How funny that I, that's exactly what I

I know I'll tell you that my dad, we had balsa
wood.
Race cars was our version ofthe, of soapbox races, and they
were about that big.
And you would get a block ofbalsa wood and you carve your
car and paint it and they gaveyou the wheels and then you
would enter this competition atthe mall and it was basically
like, like hot wheels, whatabout whichever one gets to the

(24:13):
bottom?
I remember my dad saying.
Getting out his drill.
And when we were almost donewith this car and drilling holes
in the bottom of the front ofit, and I said, what are you
doing?
And he said, do you wanna win?

Yeah.

I said, yeah.
And he put weights in it

Yeah.

and he covered'em with wood putty.
So he cheated and then we wentto the mall and my car zipped
down to the front and theypicked it up.
The judges picked it up and theysaid, you're disqualified.
For, because you put weights inthere.
And I said, and I was so naive,I remember saying, can I still
win?
And they just laughed and theysaid no.

(24:54):
And my father was standing rightthere.
Yeah.
And he ne we never talked aboutit.
He never, he was, he was movingon.
I got the car back, we wenthome.
We never talked about that.
And I thought that was such aninteresting thing.
What was the lesson, what wasthe takeaway there?
There's so many, there's so manylittle things layered in

I know.
We could talk about that for anhour

I

unpack that one little detail.
Yeah.

But I love that you soapbox race.

What, it's so interesting, so many themes in
this book.
One of them to me was just aboutexpectations,

Yeah.

fitting into a mold.
And I think all of this sort offalls into that category too, of
just, what are, what do youexpect of your child?
What do you expect of yourparent?
And then there's what do youexpect of a partner?
But there's something that comesup about.
Time and our older and youngerversions of ourselves.
And I'm curious, when we'rerecording, today is your

(25:49):
birthday, so there, this isadding like a special layer to
this question, which is likesort of an accident.
But I think, whether or not youthink it's nice for you is a
different thing.
but you said this turning point,this journey for you started
when you were 16.
What do you think your16-year-old self.
Think of this version of yourlife.

Hmm.
Um, I think my 16-year-old selfwould be absolutely thrilled.
With this version of my life, Idon't mean to sound crass or
anything, but when I was 16, Iknew full well that I, number
one, was gay.
Number two, didn't have aninterest in raising kids.

(26:36):
That Buck was stopping with meand.
I, but part of me assumed, andthis goes back to what you're
saying expectations, that is ahuge part of this of the book.
And I think of any human storyexpectations are such a trap.
And I expected that I wouldprobably end up doing those

(26:58):
things.
Though I didn't, I don't knowwhat I just I didn't have any
evidence.
Of trailblazers.
I, in my small town, I wasn'taware

yeah.

of things of possibilities that, that anybody
who had made it through and was,say a gay person who was, we
didn't even say out, I don'tthink back then, but was some
kind of anomaly, some kind like,had some special thing going on
that one couldn't aspire to.

Yeah.

Some circumstance or something.
And sometimes it was somethingvery undesirable, like something
going on that was like Iwouldn't want that, but I admire
them because of prosecution orsomething, but

Yeah, no.
My husband and I say all thetime how we don't have an
example that is a, or we don'thave multiple examples, sort of
one generation above us.
We're all figuring it out as wego.

Yeah, that's true.
And I don't really mind that.
But it is an interesting thingto realize about yourself when
you're thinking about on yourown trajectory and the emotional
through line of your life, thearc of your life not having.
Mentors not having or havingmentors in specifically, but not

(28:20):
overall.
I always thought of the, likethe classic mentor I think for
me would be someone who was gayand who would do all the things
that I think are the way oneshould live once.
And no one that, no one, I'm noteven doing that.
It's it's an expectation thing

Yes.

And we're just figuring it out as we go but I
also wonder if everybody isn'tdoing that anyway, because even
if you're surrounded by examplesand mentors, you're still
probably figuring it out as yougo, right?

sure.
And I think that at the veryleast, anyone who's thinking
independently, that's true,right?
'cause we all are individualsand we're not trying to fit into
a mold.
We're trying to.
Do our thing and maybe beinspired by those we see around
us or before us or whatever.

Yeah.

There is a moment in the book where a parent
threatens to send a kid to theirroom without dessert, to which
he asks, okay what's fordessert?

Yes.

What would be the thing for Patrick that says, oh,
I don't want to get in trouble.
I want dessert.
What would keep you, what wouldmake you behave?

Telling me that I couldn't play pinball for

no.
What's the dessert?

what's a dessert?
Oh.

if mom said, oh, we're having this for dessert,

Gosh.

say screw that.
Send me to my room.
Or no I don't wanna go to myroom.
I wanna stay.

I might choose the solitude, but uh, key lime,

are you not a sweets person?

No, I am very much um, yeah.

key lime pie.

you, yeah.
Key lime pie.

I love key lime pie.

Almost any pie.
Um.
You know, Basically

It wouldn't have taken much,

everything but cheesecake.
I'm not crazy about cheesecake,but everything else I think

but even then if it had some, if it had, key lime
curd on top, then maybe,

some cherries.
I would yeah, that's, that wouldkeep me in line,

okay.
Wait though, back to the otherthing.
Pinball.
You're a pinball person.

Oh, yeah.
That's all I really want to bedoing with my time.
It's, and thankfully, talk aboutLucky Strokes in life.
My, my partner of almost 26years shares this.
So we have built entire tripsaround just pinball locations
and

I,

play for hours and hours.

I have, oh my God.

I think your radio your podcast interviewers can't
see that your jaw has dropped.

I just am.
I like, I want like where areyou traveling to?
What's the journey like?
Is the, aren't they all thesame?
I don't you just bang on thething.
I am, like I, I wanna, when I,next time I'm in New York, we're
gonna go to Barcade together andyou're gonna show me the ways,
because.

Yeah.

I don't wanna say don't get it, but who has the
quarters

I don't mean for this to sound braggy, but if you
get to a certain skill level,your money goes a lot further.

between Say more.
What do you mean?

We noticed that once we started playing more and
we started actually gettingbetter, and then we'd go play
for an hour and a half and we'dwalk out and realize that

You've only

two or$3.
Was like Games because each gamewas lasting 25, 30 minutes.
Sometimes if it's going

Sure.
Is there like a favorite machinethat you've played that's themed
in a specific way?

Oh, sure.
Yeah.
This is so nerdy and ultranerdy.
My answer is, and I actuallyjust said it in yo to speak, but
the Lord of the Rings and TheHobbit, those are our two
favorite current two favorite.
Pinball machines.
We've gone to, Asbury Park isour biggest destination.
They have one of the best placesin the country.
And we once went to Vegas justfor the sole purpose of playing

(32:15):
pinball

Really?

and going into the desert.
We'd never been to the desert,but, and then we went and then
and basically whenever we'regoing somewhere that's after we
secure our lodging, then we.
Go onto the internet and see ifthere's what's nearby.
'cause usually plate, there aresome other nerds out there who
are gonna say, yeah, there aretwo machines there.

So it's not the other way around though.
You don't seek out the pinballmachines first and then say,
okay, I guess we're gonna go to

We

city that you've never heard of before.

yeah.
If it's if it's a big place.
Yeah.
There's a place in I can'tremember the name of the town
right now, but there's a placein Ohio that we just found out
about.
It's only open for somethinglike three hours a day and it
has 300 machines.
And we just sat there watchingthis video like, like kids
watching a pop star or somethingwas like, we have to go, we have

(33:07):
to go.
We have to get there.

so cute.

So that's where we wanna go next

Okay.
I have so many questions thatare like, so not.
Relevant to this conversation.

book.
Ah, I know.

Do you have a giant poster of like pinball
wizard from the who it?
Are you do you really lean in oris it just do you own a machine?

no, but that we have a big dream of, one day not
living in this city and, Havinga place and having a basement
and having as many machines aswe could fit into the basement.
We also have this fantasy ofthis would ever happen, of
moving to some small town.
Opening up an arcade that waslike an arcade coffee shop used

(33:52):
bookshop,

I have tendonitis in my knee.
I get gout sometimes.
I, I need to do activities thatare stress free on the body and
I would need to do some handexercises, I think for pinball,
but,

yeah.
Forearm

yeah, Uhhuh.

Good to go.

I'm not really a big video gamer, and I played
Mario Kart with my husband theother day, and my thumb was so
crampy for an hour afterwards.
I was like, this is absurd.
One of my favorite lines in thebook and one of my favorite
sentences that I think I'vemaybe ever heard in my life

Wow.

is, we aren't boops the daisy at the moment.

Oh, I love that.
I love it

boops a daisy

You could have, let me pick 5,000 sentences and
I think that's the last one Iwould've gone for

but it's the best.

We are, boom.
Yes.
What's his name?
Mr.
Is the old man who shows up atthe dance hall and wants to boom
sy.

What does the boops a daisy look like?
I didn't Google that.
I did listen to where or whenbefore we started, but I did not
Google the Boops A Daisy.

Let me just mention parenthetically, if you
haven't heard the Supreme'scover of where or when, I think
it was 1964.
Treat yourself to that.
That is so fun.
Boom, sy.
Okay, so I did a lot of course,research internet dives when I
was writing about.
There's a, there's an informaldance hall in the

you say that in quotation marks, do you mean
like you're, you considerGoogling to not be true research
or were you saying it inquotation marks because you
actually knew all of it already?
Because you're a professionaldancer that we don't actually
know about.

Oh, the latter.
No,

Oh, perfect.
All right, then stand up, pushyour camera back and show me the
boobs of Daisy.

Oh my gosh.

You're doing your research on, YouTube and the
very official places

yes.
All the little internet grasshopping.
And and I believe that was real.
I believe that it was a, there,there were some that I made up.
There's one where somebody says,put on something we can sweetie
pie too.
And that's not a dance.
I, that, that was a name that Icalled my grandmother and I
just.
I just threw that in.
It's okay, there, I'm gonna makeup a dance called the Sweetie

(36:22):
Pie.
But I think that Boom Sy was anactual dance, and it was from
the twenties, I believe, and itwas something out of that
character.
He's just a walkin, walkon,

Yeah.

Something out of his era.

If it is not real, I'm gonna be devastated.
I

I think it is real.
I think it is real, but thinkingI'm almost positive that the
booms is real.

Okay.
There

right now.
I love that.

so funny, I think I like circled it.
I underlined it.
I, wrote in the book.
I think this is my favoritesentence ever.

I

you talk about a few times in the book what I
have written in my notes as thelook tm,

Ooh.

With a little trademark.
So the look as in like the gaylook

Yeah.

in the book.
Can you describe that?
Can you show it?
Can you,

I show it?

you know where it comes from?
Where do we think the look comesfrom?

One thing I hope WII was conveying is that, so
it's, we should clarify, forreaders or for listeners that
the, we're talking about acharacter in the first, in the
1930s and in the forties and thefifties and the sixties being
completely in the closet andjust going through life.

(37:46):
And occasionally passing otherpeople.
And so what I was hoping to getacross, I hope this translated
into the book, is that the look,maybe a small fraction of the
look is I'm attracted to you.
Are you attracted to me?
But really what the look isabout is just, are you like me?

(38:10):
I am like me.
Are you like it's not abouthooking up.
'cause I'm sure there washooking up in the thirties and
forties and fifties

It wasn't the, it wasn't the eye contact.
Three steps turn around and Areyou looking at me still?
Look, no, it was the,

yeah.

Because that's more of the, let's go find a
dark corner somewhere.
And

Yes.
But I would say even that thoughit was that but it was the other
kind where you've had the lookand then you pass and maybe you
do look back and the otherperson is looking back, but it's
not.
Of, of a cast to try to catchsomething.
It's just more confirmation.
Yep.
And then you both go back toyour lives and nothing.
That was, anyway, that was myexperience when I was in the

(38:55):
eighties.
But but I was just imagining andthen basing it on, things that
I've read and people I'd spokento.
But that look is mostly aboutjust fellow traveler.

Yeah.

I I see you.
I think I think maybe we are inthis together even if we're
never gonna have a conversation.

Sure.
Fellow traveler and also,feeling seen and being seen and
seeing.
It's, we see each other.
I see you.
Something that I'm shocked hasnot come up yet because I love
talking about this woo bullshitas I call it.
It.
Is the sort of, is theclairvoyance element in the book

yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.

is you, is this a topic that intrigued you?
Is it something that you're,like, do you go to a psychic or
a medium?
Do you, what is your journeywith that element?

I I don't.
Go to one.
I personally I don't have aninterest in attending a seance
say, or that sort of thing.
I am very, I've always been veryinterested in how someone will
die and then the people who aregrieving will have some sort of

(40:12):
dream.
That's what most interests me isthe things that happen in dreams
because we will then never knowif you're the type to believe in
the possibility of that, younever know was that, and you
probably will think, no, thatwas that person coming to me and
they just came to me in thedream instead of my waking life.
Or did I do that because Ineeded that?

(40:33):
And either answer is fine,really.
But I've always been reallyinterested in that.
I've had a few experiences likeeverybody has, where something
like this has happened and Ijust, even if it wasn't a dream,
that's usually what it's with mein a dream.
And I just think I didn't comeup with that.
I just don't think I came upwith that conversation that

Right.

I just dreamed having with that person who's
dead.
That kind of thing.
That said I have this sort ofunwritten down mental list of
things that I don't like to doin fiction and that I try to do
as little as possible.
And as a reader I don't reallylike them.
And one of them is like woostuff and ghosty angel stuff and

(41:16):
ghosts and dreams and all thatstuff.
So it is interesting when youfind yourself.
Doing the thing that you didn'tthink you were gonna be doing.
Here's what happened with her.
This, I wanted, when I wasputting together this character
of Becky, and I think of her asthe good heart of the book

(41:38):
because she is the character whois least conflicted in every
sense, I think.
And she is the one who has themost unusual thing going on.
She's the one who's got thething going on that the world,
if they would bother, if theybothered to look in her
direction, they're gonna go andshe's got it together more than
anybody.
I think I wanted to, I gave herthis memory of remembering

(42:07):
someone speaking to her from theafterlife when she was eight
years old.
And that was the first thing Iwrote about her was she's
sitting, she's just sittingreading a book in a diner.
She remembers when she was a kidthat this man spoke to her.
It was a guy who died and theguy told her what basically
where his body was and then shetold that to everybody and

(42:28):
everybody freaked out.
But it turned out to be true.
And they did find the guy there,but then no one, it didn't
amount to anything other thanthe beginning of her being
thought of as an oddball.
But I wanted that for her.
And then I just thought earlyon.
Really early on with her, Ithought, I'm gonna make it real.
'Cause I thought I'm just gonnahedge and never weigh in.

(42:51):
But then I thought, I'm gonnamake it real and just see where
that goes.

Yeah, and listen it, I would argue that it's not
really woo in the book.
I think it's so honest, and Ithink we've all had those
moments of whether it's a dreamor something has come to us
that.
We just can't explain and it's,maybe like a whisper of magical
realism that's not, it's, it isnot this sort of overwhelming

(43:17):
there we don't like then see aparade of ghosts at the end or
anything like that.
It's not that.

No.
And I was really interested and.
Amazed by how much, howimportant that aspect of it
became to the overall story.
There was, there were somesignificant things that I didn't
anticipate fitting together.
Trying not to give away any bigspoiler if

No.

But there were, when I was establishing that for
her, what I really wanted was togive her something unique and I
wanted to give her somethingthat her future husband was.
I'm gonna have a really hardtime for years and years
wrapping his head around.
But deciding to make it realopened up some doors that I di I

(44:04):
didn't anticipate,

Yeah.
It, it's

and it really helped with the emotional I'm
really big on emotional throughlines for characters and the
emotional arc of the book and itplayed into that so much.

Yeah.
Speaking of Becky, speaking ofemotional through lines, there's
this really beautiful momentwhere we learn about the map of
her life.
On the map of her life.
There were plenty of pins whereshe'd been happy.
And as we're getting close tothe end of this conversation,
I'm curious, what are some ofthose pin marks on your map?

Moving.
I would say one of them wasmoving to Richmond of all things
because when I was outta gradschool, it was a year outta grad
school and I was trying tofigure out what next, and I had
friends who had moved thereahead of me and I visited them
and it was, this is like thecharacter of Margaret in the
book who is raised in a tinytown and then goes to Columbus

(44:56):
and Columbus is like New York orParis or Richmond was like a
mecca.
When I moved there, it's amoving there.
That was a pinpoint where I,'cause I had done that myself

Yeah.

and

what point where what was that part of your life?

It was one year out of, it was one year out
outta grad school.
So I was really trying to landon my feet and I, and then
landed on them by becoming anadjunct for a few years.
And that was, we all know whatthat's like.
But then even more so was movingto New York.
Which I did at 33 with no job.

(45:32):
I think I had$4,000 saved up andI had no job.
And everyone, except for mymother and my therapist advised
me against it unsolicited.
I didn't go around askinganybody if they thought it was a
good idea, but I was a bartenderat the time and so everybody.

(45:54):
I knew a thousand people andeverybody was just weighing in
and it was just astounding.
And I thought, my gosh, this isso the opposite of what in the
movies and the books wherefollow your dream kid.
It was just like everybody, myfather had infected everybody
and they, everybody was justsaying, bad idea.
Don't do it.
Don't do it.
It won't work out.
And having done that, and then Imet my partner, my life partner

(46:17):
within a year of moving there.

Oh my God.

And we've got our 26th anniversary coming up in a,
three days after the book comesout, this Buckeye comes out and
those are the big pins.

That.

And then I would say meeting Ann, that was, that
happened in 2000 and that wasjust something that made sense
to me on every level.
As we got to know each other.

Yeah.
Have you since learned Italian?

I have not.

No.

I have also not been back to Italy.
I've had no

That's fair.
That's fair.
That's fair.
Okay.
In our last two minutestogether, I was just thinking
about this because, and I askedyou a version of this question
already but I, I.
Feel like I have, I'm a fakejournalist.
I'm not a, this is notjournalism, but I have to take
advantage of the fact that thereis conversation about a big

(47:08):
birthday in the book and youhappen to be celebrating this
big birthday today while

Oh, it's the same birthday.

is the same birthday.

I hadn't even thought of that.

And so this is very moving to me, and so I
asked you this question aboutyour 16-year-old self.
Let's say you were to open aletter from your 8-year-old self
today.
What do you think it would say?

Oh, it would say something really ridiculous,
like it would assume greatriches.
An insane amassing of wealth andgenerosity and like a big statue
of me as some benevolent forcewho built orphanages.

(48:03):
And I don't know what but itwould've been big, lofty goals
of at eight years old.
At eight years old.
Actually, it might have been.
Outer space.

Yeah.

I might've still been in my astronaut mindset
because I grew up, I watched themoon launch from the foot of my
driveway when I was four yearsold and grew up with all of that
right there.
Eight years old, it might'vebeen that.

say eight'cause that's the age in the book.

Yeah I'm not, this may seem so ridiculous, but it
never occurred to me untilyou've asked me this, that the
book ends on her 60th birthday.

Yeah, I know.
I feel very special that I getto talk to you today.
This is a, it's a big day forall of us.
Patrick Ryan, thank you so muchfor being here,

Thank you.
I had a wonderful time, Jason.
This is a highlight of my week

Fantastic.
Everyone.
Go get your copy of Buckeye.
It is Out now.
Wherever you get your books, Iam so excited for you and for
the people to read it and cryjust like I did at the end of
it.
Robbie Alaine, welcome to GaysReading.

(49:12):
Do we what?

Rabih Alameddine (49:13):
do we read?

Listen you, I read that you identify as many
things, an Arab, an American,Lebanese, an atheist, a soccer
player, gay, but you mostidentify these days as a grump.

Yes I'm grumpy.
I am definitely grumpy.
I actually say that I nowtranscend being gay.
I hate everybody.

Did you, did it take a while to come to terms
with this fact?

With the grumpiness?
No grumpiness came reallynaturally.
It is just, and I did not haveto, I always joke that when I
was gay, I had to come out whenI was grumpy.
I did not have to come out.
Everybody already knew I

Oh my God, that's so funny.
I have a mug.
I'm not in my home right now,but I do have a mug that on one
side says.
I'm a little bit grumpy.
And then on the other side itsays I'm very grumpy.
So you can face it to the cameradepending on what the, what mood
you're in.
So I'm, I am feeling you alittle bit today.

This guy standing right next to me,

you are you really identify as grumpy.
That he's sitting right there.

It's a talent, I should say.

On your list, even though it might not be
publicly listed, I know you alsoidentify as a reader.

Oh God, yes.
Oh, actually I think it's listedin many places.
I

I mean in that list of, leading up to grump,
it's not there, but I'm sureit's in plenty other places.

Yes.

So you identify as a reader.
In fact, you have said thatreading and writing isn't
separated for you.
So what are you reading now?
What have you read recently?
What are you reading?
Tell me.

Good question.
I just finished, let's just saytalk about the last great gay
book that I wrote.
It's a Dutch book by this guycalled Gerran Bucker and it's
called the Hairdresser's Son.
I think it, it probably comesout now, maybe last week or
comes out, next week.
And it's ner it's a very slowboil novel about this guy who's.

(51:24):
Middle aged, shall we say, he'syounger than I am, so I can't
say he's old, but he's middleaged and the how he, he has this
hairdressing or a barbershopbasically, and he cuts hair and
the whole novel is about how helives his life.
And I thought it was a stunner.
Stunner.
I'm not making it exciting, itreally is wonderful.

Yeah.
Listen, I am not one of thosepeople who reads the blurb of
the book.
I just like to know.
Cool.
Okay.
It's a slow burn.
It's queer and it's great.
That's all I need.

And also it has a weird sort of sexual
obsession that I don't usuallyget creeped out.
With, it's like I've lived longenough to have seen and maybe
practiced quite a few.
This one creeped me out and itwas like, oh my God.
I'm, it's like being creeped outis exciting.

(52:19):
Can you imagine that?
But yes.

No, that's interesting.
To feel like you're readingsomething maybe that you've
never read before is cool.

yeah.
It just it's.
It's a small section of thebook, but when he gets down to
that let's just say I wanted togood.
My loins.

Noted.
That's good to know.
So that's the hairdresser's son.
I will have to check that out.
So again, you talked aboutreading and writing, not being
separated for you, and youstarted reading very young.
What are some of the books thatinspired you as a young person?

We had to define young.
I started reading probably atthe age of three, two to three.
I,

like great expectations

no, I started with, Superman, Batman.
I've written another essay whereI talk about wanting to be
Superman or wanting to marrySuperman.
But I read every, all the comicsand I, read them in three
languages.

Oh wow.

or I said, I looked at the pictures in three
languages.
The first sort of adult book Iread was probably, I read, we
don't read much here in terms ofEnid blight, but I read a lot of
Enid blight the Secret seven andI think it's called the Famous
Five.
Over here they'd be comparableto the Hardy Boys and the Nancy.

(53:41):
But those were a big deal.
I think the first sort of bookthat I read was Lorna Dune.
And I can't remember who wrotethat.
Not too long after I startedreading.
The great Harold Robbins andJacqueline Suzanne and Sidney
Sheldon.
And I basically was reading whatmy mother was reading, so that

(54:03):
was the age of maybe 12, 13.
And I can tell you there is nowriter that is as good for
13-year-old boys as much asHarold Robbins'cause there was
so much sex in it.
To this day we are talking, 50years later, I still remember
scenes where, he's on themassage table and she shoves two

(54:25):
fingers up his butt and it waslike, whoa.
That's literature.

And that was the moment you knew you wanted to
become a writer,

Absolutely.

the things you could put on the page.

Exactly.
Exactly.

So you were a big reader, but what do you think it
was that sort of transcended,that made you want to write, if
not the fingers up the butt?

The fingers up the butt had a lot to do with
it.
I wanted to write that.
I remember telling my father atfour that, he asked me what I
wanted to do and I grew up and Isaid I wanted to be a writer and
I was.
To me, writing was about writingBatman comics telling stories,
basically.

Yeah.

Don't know, it took me a long time to write,
but the book that probably didit for me was vs.
Nial.
The House for Mr.
Bi was, I read it when I wasalone in, boarding school in
England.
And it changed my life.
It's like you could say so manythings did, but for me that book
was a

A turning point.

turning point.

That was what that hand gesture did to me.

Yeah.

Yeah.
Yeah.

It was about this again, regular South Asian
family in Trinidad and theirlife, and that was the first
time.
I had come across for lack of abetter word, now we use this, we
use brown.
But for me, at that time it was,third world people that our life

(55:56):
and our story can be told.
And it is just as beautiful as,or as boring as other people's
stories, so NAL was the first todo that for me.
Then I went, through my gay faceand so colorant and.
All these writers did it for me,but it was Nepal first.

(56:17):
And then in that book, he sayssomething that stuck with me for
a long time and that he saidthat he knew he was a writer
because as he was reading, hewas constantly critiquing how
the writer was doing something.
So that he was reading like awriter.

(56:38):
And I realized that I've alwaysdone that.
I have notes on the books andpost-Its and everything.
I've always done that whereread, like, how would I do this?
And the funny thing is that some20 years later I was reading
another book of his, of nal, itwas called Away in the World,
and he goes back over.

(56:59):
The same material I've oncejoked that Nal won the Nobel
Prize on one book.
He kept reading the same bookover and over and over and over
brilliantly.
But he said the same thing aboutreading and being a writer.
And I was 36.
I had just gotten dumped by theone who shall remain in English.
And.
I was reading this sentence andI just started crying, and I

(57:20):
knew, that this is what, I'vebeen suppressing for so long.
So I sat down.
I never forget it.
I sat down and I wrote my firstnovel in about eight weeks to 10
weeks.
I, because I had it in mind, Iknew what I was doing.
I knew what I wanted to do.
I was in my mid to latethirties.
So it wasn't, it was somethingthat I thought about, but I,

(57:44):
with the help of drugs, I wasable to say up really late and
write this book, and it gotpublished.
It just went through slush filesand got published.

Yeah.
Wow, that's amazing.

Yeah.

You talk about.
All the ways you identify, youtalk about, you've alluded to
different stages of your life,publishing a book in the grand
scheme of things, relativelylater compared to some other
folks these At this moment, whatdo you think the chapter of your
life that you're in right nowwould be called?

How about for my eyeglasses or looking for my
reading glasses while they're onmy face?
Hmm.
It's

That's so good.

seem to be baffled these days.
What did I do with this?
I, I.
I admit openly, that life alwaysbeats me.
But I think it's amazing that Ilose everything.
I once found, couldn't find mykeys, my house keys, and I
looked in the, and I found themin my freezer.

(58:46):
How they got there, who knows,

am impressed that you even got there.

I got there three days later and I was going
to, get something out of thefreezer and it was like, oh, my
car keys, my house keys.
Yes, you so yes, that would bethe chapter of my life

The best part is of course, the while they're on
my face.

on my face.
Yeah, I've done that.
I've looked for my phone whileI'm talking on the phone to

I think that is a very common phenomenon.
I think so many of us have donethis.

Yeah.
And I think so, so my, thatchapter, this chapter of my life
will be both unique anduniversal.

exactly right.
Exactly.
You are of the people,

I am of the people, when you look at me, you
see the people

right?
You understand?
Okay.
Speaking of titles, if there wasan award for best book titles, I
think the book that you havecoming out just might win.
I want to hear about the true,true story of Raja the gullible.
And his mother.
What is your elevator pitch forthis book?

Oh God.
That tells you how unprepared Iam for these things.
Talk to me in six months I willhave the perfect pitch for the
book after it's way, past itstime to,

Jason Blitman (01:00:01):
So gimme the in.
What's the imperfect pitch

Rabih Alameddine (01:00:02):
Oh it's basically the story is about
this 63-year-old, 64-year-oldgay man who all of a sudden has
to his mother moves in with him.
And they go through crisisestogether, and they want to, the
surprising thing about the bookis that he doesn't kill his
mother.

(01:00:23):
And they have a strange, lovingrelationship.
Someone asked me what one wordcould I describe this book?
And I would to say love, butit's really devotion that
they're so devoted to eachother.
Even though they can't stopbickering.
But it's also about how we dealwith trauma these days.

(01:00:46):
A lot of times we, in my opinionhe goes through a trauma.
Like all of us we've haddifferent things in our past and
some of us dwell on it, and someof us, don't want to discuss it
anymore.
And, and I think.
But we've come to this point inlife right now where there seems
to be a standard response to, totrauma that I find troubling.

(01:01:12):
That, we, this is how you dealwith trauma and we are also
different and our traumas are sodifferent that to have a
prescribed thing is just,ridiculous.
And see this is not a one linepitch.

No, you gave the one-liner and now you're digging
into maybe where it came from,so I appreciate that.

and the big thing for me is this whole thing
of forgiveness.
Particularly as a, when I saygay soccer player, it's always
interesting to me that thevictims are always asked to
forgive.
Because it'll make us feelbetter if we forgive.

(01:01:54):
I can tell you that it nevermade me forgive, get better in
anything, but maybe it's becauseI don't forgive so easily.
But I always wanted to deal withthis whole idea of like, why,
it's like we've gotten to thepoint where we tell a woman who
was raped that If you canforgive your rapist, you'll be
okay.
It's like, why the fuck would Iwanna forgive him?

(01:02:16):
We got to the point where wetell kids, and I love it,
because we need to help.
We tell gay kids that, it getsbetter, honey.
Why aren't we talking to thebullies?
Why are we talking to thevictims?
Why does the victim have toadjust to how the bully behaves
as opposed to, fuck the bully.

Yeah.
What would you say to a bully?
Maybe as an adult right now,having lived your life and you
had a kid what do you think youwould say to them?

See, the trouble is I would as a
certified gay man, I wouldresort to, campy retorts.

Yeah.

never amount to anything.
You poor thing.
But no, see, the trouble is, andI, and this is where I actually
think there's a problem, whichis that we psychoanalyze
everything whether we want to ornot.
It's like, why is the bullydoing this?
Why?
And just like, why don't we justsay stop, Stop.

Yeah.
I wonder if it's that easy.

I don't know either.
But the trouble is we actuallynever try it almost.
It's always about, how do youprepare the victim for the
bullying that's to come?
It's probably not as easybecause we live in a society
that actually bullying, we electpresidents who are bullies
basically, and then people,let's not get into that.

(01:03:40):
It gets me.

No, but I think you're, what you're describing
is has the history of whatyou're describing has led us to
today

Yes and again, this is the thing is that we
always talk about how to survivethis as opposed to how the fuck
do you change this, and that isa big sort of shift.
Luckily for me, I was not muchinto being bullied, even as a
young boy.
I, my tongue was sharp and, youdon't want to fucking upset me

(01:04:12):
and I just did not accept it.
That doesn't, most we, I'm notsuggesting that, those who
accepted are, maybe I just nevermet true bullies or whatever,
but no, no.
We are trained from childhood toaccept.
How the dominant culture viewsthe world.

(01:04:34):
We are trained as gay boys,whether we know it or not, to
accept that, violence is goingto be part of our life and we
should do whatever we can toavoid it.

And so in the book, is that unpacked at all?
Is that some, yeah.

The trouble for me is that I don't like
shall we say didactic books,

Uhhuh.

but what he has to go through Is I important
to me and how he deals with it.
As an older man, when peoplekeep telling him that, oh, you
should look into it, and it'slike, why should I?

Did writing the book reframe your, some of your
own thoughts on devotion?

Some of it.
Some of it, yes.
Al a book always helps in somethings.
But it wasn't, it's nottherapeutic in the way that most
people think.
Writing is writing for me is nottherapeutic.
I call it the UN therapy.
I go to therapy to work onproblems exacerbated by my
writing.

(01:05:36):
What it can be is cathartic.
It can, light a fire where afire was dormant.
And that's why my therapistcomes in, but,

so writing can be cathartic and it, so it ignites
that thing that you then cantake to your therapist to, for
it to be therapeutic.

yes.
My and my, luckily for me, mypsychiatrist has been with me
for 24 years.
So every time I start, somethinggoes, oh, you said that, three
years ago, and you said thatwhen you started your other book
and.

Perfect.
We have to talk about theelephant in the room, which is
of course your incredible authorphoto.

Oh, I was gonna thought you were gonna
talk about my virginity.
'cause that's the elephant inthe room.
Um, yes, Yes.

Wait, why, how say, why do you say that?

That's the rumors that I'm a virgin and I
keep telling people no I'm not.

Okay, you heard it here.
Everyone, Robbie is not avirgin.

Yes.

But now let's talk about your author photos.
'cause not only is the one forthis book, fantastic, but you go
onto your website, you have allof these incredible photos.
What inspired these?

Paintings mostly, most of them are based
on painting.

Of course, but what inspired you to have them?

The guy who does them is an artist by the
name of Oliver Waso, and we'vebeen friends for a while.
He uses photos and workspaintings into the photos.
The first portrait he did of me,he did it as a portrait and it's
actually it's hanging, one ishanging here.

(01:07:12):
Hold on.
Do you see it?

Oh my God.
That's the one that is on yourwebsite and that is incredible

There's also a portrait of me in the back

back.
Yeah.
So fun

But because I have lots of friends who are
artists, but this one isactually hanging in, in museum,
I think in Louisiana somewhere.
Yes, there is a museum inLouisiana.

You are featured in.

yes, exactly.
Do they need anything else?
No.
so it was, just taken as a,regular portrait.
He has a series of portraits offriends, just like that said.
Of course, none of them is asfabulous as this

Of course not

And so for the annual of history, I jokingly
they said, we need an authorphoto.
And I jokingly sent them this asa joke.
Seriously.

Uhhuh.

And they flipped out.
The publishers and my agentrefused to use any other photo,
and so we had to go with it andsince then it's become this sort
of ritual of, what photo do youput on The last one is one of my
favorites.
I chose.
The,'cause I love, it's apainting by Brono and the

(01:08:26):
painting by Brono is calledYoung Man with a book.
So of course I wanted to put myface on there to make it look
like I'm the young man.
But it was a lot of fun comingup with the books that the young
man has.

How, what was that process like?

Oh God, it was so much fun.
The main book that he has hisfinger in.
He's fingering the book is butyou, I don't know if you'd
remember,'cause I don't thinkyou're that old, but it's called
The Happy Hooker by XavierHollander.

Oh no.

Yeah.
She used to be in the seventies.
She used to have a column inpenthouse Magazine that had some
gay stuff in it, but it wasprimarily heterosexual, like you
could add.
It was again, young.
Teenage boys read it andmasturbated to it all the time.
And it was so popular, but thenit disappeared.

(01:09:18):
So there's Xavier Hollanders,the Happy Hooker.
There's Jacqueline, Suzanne theValley of the Dolls.
There is my Pet Goat and myfavorite, and that's the one
that I came up with, which isthe annotated hungry
caterpillar.
Oh, good.
You laughed.

There's a lot to say about that book.

no, I know.

Funny.

I can't think of anything else, but we came up
with all these, what booksshould we put in there?

They're all terrific photos and this one in
particular I just loved so, somuch.

Yeah.
Again, unfortunately, mostpeople when they see that, they
think it's an un, they think meunserious, which I mean, I don't
know where they get this idea.

Your book title has the word true in it twice
and words in parentheses.
So there, there's a lot givingyou away.
It's not just the photo.
But everyone should get theircopy of the true Story of Raja,
the Gullible and his mother outnow, wherever you get your books

(01:10:26):
Robbie Aladin, it is so nice tohave you here.
Thank you for being my guest gayreader today.

Thank you for having me.

So many fabulous things that I, lots that I
haven't heard of that I think alot of us are look looking
forward to picking up.
And I also look forward toreading your short story.
I need to find my glasses eventhough they're on my face.

I didn't tell you the one we know.
I have one book that I wannacall it dropped in 1990 1998.
And then Colin, and where thehell is my butt?
It's like nobody has seen it inso long, it's

Oh, no.

happened?
What happened?

That's an amazing like mystery novel.

Yes.
Exactly.
Exactly.

did your butt go?
It dropped in 1998.

It's it's like what happened?
It's like gravity couldn't havedropped it that much.

Oh my God.
And on that note, everyone gohelp Robbie find his butt.

Thank you.
Patrick and Robbie, thank you somuch for being here.
Everyone check out their books.
They are out now, wherever youget your books, have a great
rest of your day.
See you later.
Bye.

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