PAGE 20 ▼ Q-Notes ▼ March 31, 2001
mC"iture]
Another American: Asking & Telling
nominated for Helen Hayes Award
Dance
Film
Literature
between the covers
I want my mommy, daddies!
Endangered Species
by Louis Bayard
Alyson Publications
April, 2001
$13.95
by Steve Ralls
Special to Q-Notes
NEW YORK — On March 20, the 2001
Helen Hayes Awards nominated Ano:/;er Ameri
can: Asking & Telling for outstanding nonresi
dent production. Marc Wolf was also nominated
for outstanding lead actor in a nonresident pro
duction for his performance. Winners will be
announced May 7 at a Kennedy Center gala.
Wolf’s performance in Another American:
Asking & Telling has been lauded by the New
York Times as “brilliant... a tour de force por
trayal,’’ by USA Today as “A Top Ten Play of
1999,’’ and by the Village Voice as “a smart, pro
vocative and chilling event.’’ The play, which
had extended runs in New York, Washington
and San Francisco, is a one-man show featur
ing portrayals of men and women impacted by
Dont Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Pursue, Don’t
Harass,” and prior anti-gay policies. Distilled
from 200 interviews of members of the mili
tary community. Wolf takes audiences on a
national tour of the American military, sanc
tioned discrimination, and its human fall out.
“We congratulate Marc on the Helen Hayes
Award nominations,” said C. Dixon Osburn,
SLDN’s Executive Director. “Another Ameri
can is a poignant reminder of how bigotry hurts
unit cohesion and destroys lives. Wolf’s nomi
nations are well-deserved recognition of his ar
tistic achievement.”
Wolf’s Helen Hayes nominations follow his
Obie Award win and Drama Desk and Outer
Critics Circle Awards nominarions. Future per
formances are planned for Los Angeles and
Chicago. T
Take The Latest QjPOLL
Where do you look for GLBT news and information?
The Internet GLBT papers (Q-Notes or others)
Queer Magazines (OUT, etc.)
Vote at www.q-notes.com
Now open extended hours
in all three stores!
Charlotte:
834 Central Ave. 28204 - (704) 377-4067
Mon.-Thurs. 10am-9pm
Fri. lOam-lOpm, Sat. 10am-9pm, Sun. Noon-8pm
Greensboro:
1833 Spring Garden St. 27403
(336) 272-7604
Mon.-Sat. 10am - 9pm, Sun. lpm-7pm
Raleigh:
309 W. Martin St. 27601
(919) 856-1429
Mon.-Sat. 10am - 9pm, Sun. Noon - 8pm
ill Books & Things
www.WhiteRabbitBooks.com
LOS ANGELES, CA — Louis Bayard, the
critically acclaimed author of the sleeper hit
Fool’s Errand, has recently completed a new
novel, Endangered Species, which is being pub
lished in April by Alyson.
The Broome family is facing an uncertain
future; however no one but youngest son Nick
seems to notice. Driven by an inexplicable but
driving certainty that they are on the brink of
extincrion, Nick vows to bring a child into the
world by whatever means necessary. The prob
lem? Nick is gay.
The brave new world of parenting is ex
plored as never before in Louis Bayard’s new
novel, which is full of the dry wit, snaking plot
turns, and vivid, well-rounded characters that
earned raves and fans for his first novel. Fool’s
Errand. Nick’s quest for a surrogare mother will
draw him to schizophrenics, Hispanic immi
grants, body-pierced teenagers, female escorts,
a God-fearing phlebotomist, an itinerant
matchmaker, and an unbalanced but irrepress
ible young woman named Natrie, who ulri-
mately may provide what he is seeking in the
way he least expected.
Alternately moving and very, very funny,
Nick Broome’s quest to leave a mark on the
world drives straight to the heart of the evolv
ing nature of love and family.
Bayard, a native ofWashington, DC, talked
about some of the questions raised by his
bookand the intersection between his writing
and his life. He was joined by his partner of 13
years, Don Montuori.
Tell me about the genesis o/" Endangered
Species.
B: My lasr book. Fool’s Errand, ended with
the hero, Patrick Beaton, finding his Mr. Right
and settling down with him in this very happy
Jane Austen-ish way. So I started thinking about
what the next step would be for a couple like
thar, and, not surprisingly, the idea of kids pre
sented itself I wasn’t really keen on doing a se
quel to Fool’s Errand, so I started wondering
how the possibility of kids would present itself
to a single gay man. What kinds of obstacles
would he encounter? What sort of options
would he be forced to pursue? And gradually
rhis character, Nick Broome, and this whole
reproductive odyssey began to take form.
You have a good time writing about things like
sperm banks and surrogate mothers. What kind
of research did you have .to do?
B: I talked to some people including my
brother, who’s a physician. And like Nick, I did
Airfoir In Slicw Cuis
by Jane Martin
A Texas theatre company trying to
mount a production of Chekhov's
The Three Sisters runs into all kinds
of mayhem in this hilarious satire.
Recommended for mature audiences.
THE
AaOR'S
THEATRE
CHARLOTTE‘S
W
o.
mil
V
Location: Spirit Square
Dates: March 28-April IS, 2001
Tickets: $14-18, call 372-1000, or buy
online at www.actorstheatrecharlotte.org
Show times: Wed./Thurs. at 7:30p>m.
Friday/Sat. at 8pm, Sun. April IS only 2 pm.
Opening night: Wednesday, March 28, all seats $9.
Tuesday, AjSril 3,7:30 is “pay what you can night.”
No reservations -cash only- first come, first served. No amount refused.
‘Aching Hilarity”-Weber, NY Times
A Must-See Comedy for Those Who Love Theatre"
-Weiss. Chicago Sun-Times
“Hilarious and Loving*I Recommend it Highly”
-Tony Brown.Cleveland Plain Oeater
a lot of research on the Internet. I stopped short
of actually wading into that world myself. It
I seemed-kind of ethically suspect to engage
people at that level when you’re just looking
for material.
One of the more memorable characters in the
book is Lyle Kibbee, who describes himself as a
“surrogacy broker. ’’Are there really people like that?
B: There are agencies, certainly, that hook
up aspiring parents with surrogate moms.
Whether there are people like Lyle, actually go
ing off on their own, I can’r say. But these days,
with the Internet, that kind of thing would defi
nitely be possible. Of course, the Internet also
empowers people to forge these links on their
own and eliminate the middleman, which I
would have to think is Lyle’s downfall.
What are some of the things Endangered Spe
cies has in common with your last book. Fool’s
Euand?
B: Well, they’re borh built around a quest
theme. In Fool’s Errand, it’s the search for Mr.
Right, the Scottish Prince. In Endangered Spe
cies, its the search for an heir—some way of
living on in the next generation. But, of course,
I rend to see the differences more than the simi
larities. The first book, for instance, was writ
ten in this very controlled third-person style.
Endangered Species, by contrast, has a more id
iosyncratic first-person voice. And it’s written
in present tense because I think that gives you
a better feeling for being plunged into
somebody’s mania.
Would you say Endangered Species is also
darker than your first book?
B: Yeah, Fool’s Errand v^as really conceived
as a lark. I tried to keep it as fast and light as I
could. This time around, I gave myself permis
sion to insert more texture, more shadow with
out, I hope, losing the narrative momentum
that the last book had. So although I think of
it as an upbeat book, it doesn’t necessarily tie
everything up in a big bright bow, and not ev
eryone winds up wirh what he wants.
It’s probably safe to say that people reading this
book will wonder if it’s autobiographical.
B: It’s a common assumption, and I resist it
a little bit, because Nick Broome isn’t me and
so much of Endangered Species is just flat-out
made up. But I’d be lying if I said the subject '
of children hasn’t been on my mind for the last
few years. Donald Windham once said that
instead of telling writers “Write what you
know, we should be telling them: “Write what
you need to know.” And that was certainly the
case here. I knew having a kid was possible,
bur I really needed to know if it was something
I wanted. In a way, I envied Nick, because he’s
ready to do it from the very start, and it’s just a
matter of making it happen.
So Endangered Species helpedyouget
comfortable with the idea of adopting?
B: You know, I have to say it really just deep
ened the muddle. So it was a long process of
talking it with out Don, talking to a counselor,
and then just lying there in the middle of the
night, going: “Oh, my God, can I do this?”
M: And then one night, we’re lying in bed,
and he said, “Oh, all righr, let’s do it.” And I
said, “Okay.”
B: He was drifting off to sleep at the time.
So, by the time Endangered Spiecies comes out,
the two of you will have adopted your very own baby
M: If ever)T:hing goes according to plan, we’ll
have a little bundle from Vietnam.
B: Unless Cambodia re-opens.
Is it scary for a gay couple to take this step?
As a gay man, you do have this feeling of
going against society’s grain. I mean, we live six
blocks from Congress, and last year there was
legislation, actual legislation that would have
made it illegal for us ro adopt internationally. It
didn’t get through, thank God, but it was a kind
of wake-up call. You realize that not everyone is
going to approve of you, and you worry at least,
I worry about what that means for your kid.
Are there any points where you and Nick
Broome part company?
B: I don’t particularly care about passing on
my genes I could care less, really but Nick’s ob
sessed with it, and I think a lot of people are, too.
That’s probably why people resist adoption, be
cause they think, as long as they know the genetic
components of their kid, there won’t be any sur
prises. And of course, there are always surprises.
Adoptive parents just know that going in. You
take the leap and hope for the best. ▼
[Since this interview was conducted, Don and
Louis did indeed return from Vietnam with their
child, a boy, whom they named Seth.]