eveningsout
Search for love leads to Home Depot, not circuit parties
Fool's Errand
by Louis Bayard
Alyson, $12.95 trade paperback
Reviewed by Kaizaad Kotwal
Louis Bayard set out to write a novel to show how most gay people live, away from the glamour of Hollywood films and queer pulp fiction, where everyone is beautiful, money flows, and sex is always plentiful and never mediocre, or simply bad. His debut novel does just that.
A native of Alberquerque, New Mexico, Bayard has lived for the past 12 years in Washington, D.C., the city in which he set Fool's Errand.
"I just wanted to write a D.C. novel that didn't have politics, conspiracies or military cabals like those of someone like [Tom] Clancy," Bayard said. In addition, he "wanted to write a book my friends would read that reflected the way they lived."
Bayard commented that much of the gay fiction published today does not reflect the lives of middle-of-the-road gay people. Rather it focuses on the glamorous and overly sexualized mirages of Los Angeles or New York.
"These books are not reflective of the way most gay people are,” Bayard says, "because they are almost always set in New York, or L.A. and once in a while on Fire Island or Provincetown and there are always beautiful men who have copious sex.'
""
Bayard doesn't want to come across as a prude, but he firmly believes that there “are other roads to wisdom than sex and it's not a moralistic view. It's just that we are more likely to be at a Home Depot than at a circuit party."
Fool's Errand focuses on the journey of its protagonist Patrick Beaton as he obsessively searches for the man of his dreams, a man he thinks he saw (or dreamed) while at a party. Along the way. Patrick reevaluates his curren--and more real-relationships and comes to wisdom about appreciating the present and the now, instead of obsessing about some fantastical ideal.
"The genesis of the book is cloudy," Bayard admits, “but I remember I was at the gym and I saw this guy with a Road Runner tattoo on his leg, and it just got me thinking about how one would find someone like that based only on that clue."
In the novel, the clue is a gorgeous guy in a Shetland wool sweater, nicknamed Scottie by his pursuer Patrick.
Bayard's characters end up finding wisdom in that which is already there. In many ways this "accidental wisdom or knowledge couldn't be found if you deliberately went looking for it. It is that noble, and yet silly, quest for that higher perfection that makes these characters stumble upon other truths." The author says that while the book is "plain invention” he has "drawn from friend's
fool's errand
novel by
louis bayard
lives and I freely plunder and don't ask for permission."
But with all the tricks of the trade and poetic license "the characters eventually acquire a reality of their own." Bayard's friends "have enjoyed the book and I guess no trust was betrayed because there are no lawsuits yet," he adds with a chuckle.
From his friend's testimonials, Bayard concludes that "the couples are most touched
Curbside
FOXY
Wh
RAIN, FOR THE LAST TIME, THIS IS NOT A DATE. I'M HELPING HIM OUT WITH HIS LINE READINGS.
@ 1999 BY ~~ ROBERT KIRBY
TONIGHT'S THE BIG DATE WITH JORGE, HUH?
UH HUM. GOOD LUCK BABY!
NO, THAT'S OK....
THAT'S FOR
by the gay domesticity being celebrated."
Even though Bayard didn't write a sentimental novel with a sweetly cathartic ending, "some of my friends were crying by the end" simply because of the validation given to gay domesticity.
Bayard himself is surrounded by celebrations of domesticity. His partner of 12 years, Don Montuori, is equally a family man, and they met while at grad school in Chicago.
"It's great as a writer to have a stable home environment and the time and emotional comfort to write," Bayard says of hid relationship. “I am in a true partnership which is really nice and I hope I don't sound smug."
The book seems to be doing very well already and is in its second printing very shortly after its release.
"It seems to be doing very well and is on several stores' best sellers lists in D.C. and Atlanta." Bayard is already at work on his next novel the working title is Nativity Scenes-which is about “a single gay man who wants to single-handedly have a child.”
While Fool's Errand celebrates mundane gay domesticity, there seems to be a conversation taking place in the national gay movement that runs counter to the age-old strategies of proving that gays and lesbians are just like their straight counterparts.
"My friends in D.C. started a group called Partners, for gay couples," Bayard explains, "and they got a lot of flak from some saying, 'How dare you wave your couplehood in our
ON THE NON-DATE...
WORKING WITH RAIN IS FUN. HE'S SO INTO THIS SILLY VALLEY OF THE DOLLS THING THAT IT MAKES ME FORGET I'D RATHER BE WORKING ON SOME THING WITH A LITTLE MORE SUBTANCE. BUT YOU KNOW, YOU TAKE THE WORK YOU CAN GET.
sigh
LET'S JUST SAY THAT REAL TAKE MY GIRLFRIEND
LOVING SOMEONE GIRLFRIEND DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN YOU CAN LIVE WITH THEM!
AND I FOR EXAMPLE... WE GET ALONG GREAT, BUT...
?!?
WELL, NEITHER ONE OF US IS JUMPING AT THE PROSPECT OF EXPLORING CO-HABITATION...
DAMN.
I MEAN, IF MY LAST BOYFRIEND AND I HADN'T MOVED IN TOO SOON WE MIGHT'VE STILL BEEN TOGETHER TO THIS DAY...
face'." Bayard finds that his straight friends and acquaintances are more impressed by these gay couples "because we're supposed to be these sick, promiscuous, dying people."
Bayard says that "the discourse on both sides needs to be more mature.”
Fool's Errand is a romantic romp through a quest for the ideal and the perfection found only in fantasy. The novel is deliciously witty and exudes a charm all its own. Bayard's detail of geography and character are vivid and even cinematic as the places and people become flesh and blood on each page. Bayard has a lot of affection for his characters, and as the pages go by this transfers easily onto the reader.
Since some of the book is set up as a mystery with a farcical twist, it reads like lightening as we are swept up in Patrick's frenzied quest for Scottie. But Bayard's novel isn't all fantasy and sparkling comedy. The book has a gritty and real look at the lives of ordinary gay men and their world and while the premise of the book is quaint, the characters never become cartoonish nor do their lives seem unidentifiable. On the contrary, it is easy to identify closely with Patrick and what it means to search for the ideal, only to find that what is in the present is far more real and ultimately much more valuable.
Bayard's debut novel is definitely worth a read, and if this is any indication of things to come, readers will be keenly anticipating Nativity Scenes and any future works the author may pen.
BY ROBERT KIRBY
THAT'S WHY RAIN STARTED BLATINOTM PRODUCTIONS. I ADMIRE HIS INITIATIVE, IF NOT ALWAYS THE PLAYS HE CHOOSES.
YOU JUST WANT HIM TO DO WELL, THAT'S ALL. I DON'T UNDERSTAND, WHY AREN'T YOU TWO STILL TOGETHER, ANYWAY? I DON'T MEAN TO GET ALL IN YOUR BUSINESS, BUT...
BOYFRIEND?!
AHEM IT'S GOOD TO HEAR YOU'VE LEARNED FROM YOUR MISTAKES.DON'T GO RUSHING
INTO ANYTHING...!
MORE WINE?
SURE!
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