Praline, Nowak, and 'Femme' :: Marshall Thornton on His Queer Novel Triptych

Novelist Marshall Thornton sharpened his quill and produced no less than three new books in 2016 and early 2017. Of the two novels that Thornton published in 2016, one was the annual new installment of his "Boystown" mysteries, an ongoing series set in Chicago in the 1980s and featuring a gay private detective named Nick Nowak.

The other was a comic novel titled "Femme" which, despite being loaded with laughs, also addressed -- with heart and clarity -- the issue of how many in the gay community chastise and reject men deemed to be too "feminine." This book has netted the award-winning Thornton his latest accolade, having been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in the Gay Romance category. (The seventh volume in the "Boystown" series, "Bloodlines," took the Lammie for Gay Mystery in 2015; Thornton's books have also been honored time and again by the Rainbow Awards.)

The results of last year's election galvanized Thornton to write a third novel in the waning days of 2016. "Praline Goes to Washington" is perhaps the most exceptional of the works under discussion here, as it was written (or so it seems to the reader) in a white hot creative blaze. The sequel to the 2015 novel "The Perils of Praline," the newest book in Thornton's catalogue -- published mere days before the inauguration of our 45th president -- sees the novel's eponymous hero (who is sweet, dull-witted, and a magnet not only for all sorts of outlandish sexual hijinks, but also ceaseless, hair-raising crises) headed to Washington, D.C. with his progressive boyfriend, Jason, and Jason's self-absorbed movie-star mother, Yolanda, to see newly-elected President Dump take the oath of office (and join in on a protest). The book's day-glo silliness highlights the political absurdities of our time while skewering the present administration.

"Femme," by contrast, allies its laughs with romance and social commentary of a different stripe, telling the story of a burgeoning love affair between an athletic, straight-acting gay man nicknamed Dog and the unapologetically "femme" Lionel who, after getting fired from his restaurant gig, decides to pass himself off as a butch straight guy in order to get a new job.

Then there's the new Nick Novak mystery, the ninth in the "Boystown" series, which features tense courtroom scenes, fraught domestic storylines, and a trip to Las Vegas for the native Chicago gumshoe.

EDGE had a chance to chat with Thornton about the trove of new gay fiction he's served up for readers and sound him out on the social and creative views that power his writing.

EDGE: "Femme" very correctly notes that more "feminine" guys in the gay community are too often subjected to the kind of contempt and even harassment from their own fellow gay men that gays are subjected to from aggressively homophobic straights. I think you make a good case for this being an insidious form of internalized homophobia. Have I understood this right? Or is there more to this particular subgenre of discrimination?

Marshall Thornton: No, I think you got it. I think any kind of prejudice takes a long time, sometimes a lifetime, to free yourself from. Certainly, that's the case with internalized homophobia. It crops up in our lives over and over again, even after we feel as though we've rid ourselves of it. Which makes it a great subject for fiction.

EDGE: What was your spark, or your motive perhaps, for writing "Femme?"

Marshall Thornton:For a long time, I've been interested in the interplay between the larger world of our society and the smaller, personal world of intimate relationships. So often we think they don't really connect but the longer I'm alive the more I see the connection between social movements and our lives.

I know I began seeing articles about the things femme guys experience a few years ago-and, of course, I'm aware of the "no fats or femmes" world of internet dating-but what I remember most is the things people say in comments whenever there's a new show with an effeminate gay character. Right away there are comments like "Why does he have to be so gay?" or "He doesn't represent us." This was certainly a long-term complaint about Jack from "Will & Grace" and Marc on "Ugly Betty." Conversely, we've seen a lot characters who are basically so "masc" as to be indistinguishable from straight characters - something which is usually congratulated. I don't think you can represent gay men in the "right" way with just one character. Both of these stereotypes are right and wrong at the same time. And yet, I knew that people exist at both extremes and both deserve their stories told no matter what the larger world thinks is PC.

EDGE:The two characters have such distinct and authentic voices; Dog really does sound exactly like every stereotypical guy ever, while the view from Lionel's first-person perspective is true both to the outer appearance the character creates but also a smart, strong individual beneath that exterior. What was your process for creating those two quite distinct voices and world views?

Marshall Thornton:I wrote the first chapter sometime in 2014 and then got distracted by other projects. I got back to it last spring (2016) and finished it in seven or eight weeks. I remember that I kept thinking I should just read one half and then the other but every time I tried I'd keep reading both.

The first thing I ever wrote was a play - a very long time ago - so, I've gotten used to writing in different voices.

EDGE: What's the response been to "Femme" -- other than the Lammie nom, I mean? Do you hear from guys who say it opened their eyes? Do you hear from guys who say that it's about time someone represented them so well?

Marshall Thornton: There has been strong response to the book. Most of it very positive. One reader was hesitant to read the book because he thought it would be about putting down the femme guy and getting him to change. That one surprised me, and I don't even know how to write a book like that.

I do want to quickly mention that "Femme" is going to be an audiobook with Joel Leslie narrating. It should be out sometime in June.

EDGE: Let's talk a little about the new "Boystown" book, "Lucky Days." This is the ninth volume in the series -- did you have any thought, when you started off with Nick Nowak short stories, that you'd end up writing full novels, and that the novels would run as long as they have (with no end in sight)?

Marshall Thornton: No. In 2007 and 2008 I made a decent amount of money from some mainstream short stories I wrote. The Kindle market was very open at that time and people were looking for content. So, in 2009, I conceived Boystown as a short story series to be sold individually. I submitted them to the publisher I was working with at the time and was told they wouldn't come out for almost a year. When I expressed my disappointment, they suggested I put the stories together as one book. And that became "Boystown: Three Nick Nowak Mysteries."

Switching to the novel format was really a strategic decision since many readers don't like short stories. Some people do start the series with "Boystown 4: A Time For Secrets." I just hope they get curious enough to double back for the first three.

I've been asked a lot how long I intend to continue the series, and I've never really had a feeling for how long I'm going to continue. I know things that I want to deal with in books twelve and thirteen so I know I'm going at least that far. I assume I'll go further, but who knows. There may come a time when it feels right to end it.

EDGE: "Lucky Days," like the other books in the series, is set in the 1980s and addresses the culture of that time -- a chunky watch appears in the story, for instance, and HIV tests are only just starting to become available; at one point, Nick even says that he simply assumes he's HIV positive, because he has no real reason to assume otherwise. Have you decided already where to take that story thread?

Marshall Thornton: Yes, I do know where that part of the story is going. It's several books down the road. Right now, I'm writing "Boystown 10: Gifts Given," which takes place at Christmas of 1984. I think the first tests were available in April 1985, with free anonymous testing following a few months later. So, I think we're still at least three books away from that issue.

EDGE: Are you, in some sense, writing to the trend we see today of a huge, alarming spike in the numbers of new HIV cases, especially among young men of color?

Marshall Thornton: I'm certainly aware of what's going on today, but I wouldn't say it influences what I'm writing in a direct way. In a larger sense, though, yes. When you look at the number of people who've died of AIDS (636,000 as of 2014) in comparison to the number of people we lost in VietNam (58,209) or even World War Two (405,399) and then compare that to the amount of fiction devoted to each of these national tragedies, you'll see that AIDS in fiction is vastly under represented. As a society, we've swept it under the rug. That alone is a reason to keep writing about it.

EDGE: There's a real mix of storylines going on with "Lucky Days" -- the criminal trial of crime boss Jimmy English, a mob hit that's ordered on an acquaintance of Nick's and that he's trying to prevent, and Nick's home life (including Nick's former sometime lover Ross, who is sick and staying on Nick's couch). On top of all that, there's a paying client who wants Nick to find out what happened to him one Saturday night when he was blackout drunk and woke up covered in blood. What brought all these particular strands together for this book?

Marshall Thornton: Well, the Jimmy English plotline has been in the works since "Boystown 7: Bloodlines," and it was time to finish it. I love courtroom dramas and it was a fun opportunity for me to do a bit of that. I also love Las Vegas and it was fun to try and create Las Vegas as it was in 1984. I'd actually been planning to send Nick to Las Vegas for quite some time. I also had the idea about Nick being hired to discover what someone couldn't remember for several years. I usually have several ideas kicking around until I finally manage to fit them into a book.

EDGE: Every new volume of "Boystown" now feels like a chapter in a larger saga. Have you started to think about the story in that larger sense and plot out how that story will develop across multiple volumes? How far into the future -- in terms of years in the 1980s or in terms of books in the series -- do you feel you can see ahead and know what's coming?

Marshall Thornton: Books 2 through 5 have a distinct arc about the Bughouse Slasher and then 7 through 9 deal with Jimmy English. I know that Boystown 10 will be a transitional book and I'll start a new arc in Boystown 11. I don't know right now what that's going to be. I do know it won't be about a serial killer or a mobster.

Right now I know more about what's going to be happening to Nick in his personal life. I'm tempted to say I'd like to continue into the late eighties and maybe even the nineties, but if I do that people will make assumptions about what will be happening to Nick and I don't know that I want them to. It's the future, and I don't know what's going to happen.

EDGE: At the same time, there's so much back story that's accumulating -- how do you keep track? Are you afraid of tripping over your own laces, so to speak, with all the different storylines and relationships that you've introduced?

Marshall Thornton: How do I keep track? I have to go back and search through the books every so often. I also use the same beta readers who've been with me from the start so they help. I do enjoy the supporting characters and I know a lot of readers do, too. They often do things I'm not exactly planning. For instance, I did not know that Ross was going to be returning when I sent him off to Normal.

EDGE: I can't let the opportunity pass to bring up your other new comic novel, "Praline Goes to Washington." I think I laughed out loud at least once on every page. How on earth did you write a book this funny and pointed, and do it in the couple of months between when Herr Trump got appointed by the Electoral College and when the book was published?

Marshall Thornton: Like many progressives I was shocked and depressed after the last election. I don't think I've ever felt so personally threatened by an American president. Over the years readers have asked if I was going to write a sequel to "The Perils of Praline," and for a while I said maybe. Then during the spring of 2016 someone asked and I said, "No. Not unless Trump gets elected." After being depressed for the first two weeks after the election, I remembered that and thought, "You know, I should do that." As soon as I began writing the depression began to lift. It was a lot of work to write and put out a book in nine weeks, I think it was. It helped that it was a sequel and I'd spent time with those characters before. It also helped that if was funny. And silly.

EDGE: I had not read the earlier Praline novel, but he seems like such a complex and difficult character to write well - he's so dim, and yet he possesses a certain logical way of thinking all his own. Every chapter is a revelation. Is this something you plot out or are you taking dictation from the character in some way?

Marshall Thornton: I do have to plot everything out. The Praline books are different than other books in that each chapter has some kind of crazy, silly sex scene and then ends on a peril. Once I figure out the sex and the perils it's a matter of finding a logical way to get from one to the other. Well, a logical way in Praline's mind. His character owes a lot to Voltaire, the Marquis de Sade and other erotic writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yes, I'm the guy who decides to write erotic and goes right back to the beginning.

EDGE: There's a lot of straight-up anger and outrage in "Praline," too, which gives the humor a real bite. Were you taking notes all through the election?

Marshall Thornton: I was paying a lot of attention, that's true. I follow politics closely. The way the language is used in American politics is fascinating. I am somewhat surprised by how much of the ridiculous satire I made up is turning out to be true. In the book, I wrote about the idea of things being alt-real months before alternative reality became a household idea. Foreign influence on the election and even the "deep state" are all there.

EDGE: Now that we have actually ended up with a clueless authoritarian as President of the United States -- and especially now that we see how his supporters continue to support and defend him despite his conflicts of interest, his obvious inability to do the job, and his temperamental lack of fitness -- do you feel that we actually have any real hope of clawing our democracy back in any sort of functioning order?

Marshall Thornton: Yes, absolutely. I think if we were facing another run-of-the-mill conservative Republican we might be lulled into a horrified complacency, but Trump is so obviously inept and criminal that his behavior alone will keep the resistance energized until he leaves office. I think the grassroots resistance to Trump will energize and focus Democrats in ways we haven't seen for decades. The courts have been stepping up and the press seems to have awakened. All of these are good signs I think.

Perhaps most importantly, I read an article that suggested the number one thing an authoritarian needs is for people to anticipate what he wants and capitulate in advance. I don't see that happening. I see a lot of very angry people.

EDGE: The Trump administration has made a lot of friends in low places, especially among the homophobic religious right. Do you see this as a worrisome development? Do you, as others do, see it as a kind of return to the hostile governmental homophobia of the 1980s?

Marshall Thornton: I certainly think this government is hostile to the queer community. I don't know that they can be like the government of the eighties though, since the hostility of the Reagan years was simply assumed and accepted. At that time, about 70% of the population did not accept same-sex relationships. Now, that number is down to 30%. That means the tolerance for institutionalized homophobia is much lower. The general public is not going to be as accepting of governmental homophobia as they were in the eighties. And that gives me hope.

EDGE: How about a Praline/Nick Nowak crossover?

Marshall Thornton: OMG. Now you've frightened me.

"Femme," "Praline Goes to Washington," and "Boystown 9: Lucky Days" are all on sale now.