Message of Love chapter excerpt: Reid and Everett's First Pride

This year I ducked out of SF LGBT Pride events a little early, not because of any sense of shame or fatigue (well, a little fatigue). I've attended Pride marches, and marched myself, with several groups over the years, even rode a bicycle several times –now, that was fun.

photo: Andy Warhol

But in fictionalizing the first Pride event for my characters Reid and Everett in Message of Love, I had to re-remember the naiveté, innocence and sense of being overwhelmed to be in the company of thousands of out LGBT people. 

Do you recall your very first Pride event? Were you scared, nervous, afraid, overwhelmed? My first time, in 1988, New York City, I was. I snuck out of a job that required me to work that Sunday. Wearing a button-down shirt and pants, I was quite overwhelmed to see so many smiling happy people. By the next year, I was marching with ACT UP, protesting, chanting, and in the company of a tribe of like-minded activists.

Pennsylvania Pride

As LGBT Pride events fill our national (and international) calendars, I want to focus on Pennsylvania, and the setting of my two most recent novels, where it seems the fictional dreams of my protagonists have come true.

Some background about the two novels Every Time I Think of You and Message of Love (with some minor spoilers).

Dancing in the streets of Pittsburgh

In 1979, Everett Forrester's sister and father live in Pittsburgh, and in the first novel, the two young men's first awkward romantic night is spent in Squirrel Hill, a scenic neighborhood similar to Shadyside.
 
This May, people were dancing in the streets in the neighborhood of Shadyside after Pennsylvania's same-sex marriage ban was declared unconstitutional. (Photo by Michael Henninger/Post-Gazette)

Two Memorial Days

It's no small coincidence that the airing of HBO's adaptation of Larry Kramer's play The Normal Heart took place on Memorial Day weekend. While most of America commemorated its war dead, others are still recovering from the war known as AIDS.

The reaction to the groundbreaking play has been overwhelmingly positive, as it should be.

And it took producer-director Ryan Murphy (Glee, American Horror Story, etc) to finally help Larry Kramer wrangle it from Barbra Streisand, who clung to the film rights for decades.

Seeing Mark Ruffalo portray Ned Weeks, the protagonist version of Kramer himself, offers a fascinating look at the best and worst of what critics and fans have used to depict Kramer himself.

Chrissie Hynde, Deborah Harry and Me

As an author of fiction that always involves gay men, I may have given women short shrift in my ongoing learning process of writing. But women have held a strong role in my life, and the women in my fiction hopefully will continue to hold a strong place in my novels. 

Also, being in the romance genre for my pair of novels Every Time I Think of You and Message of Love, I'm happy to see that two women rock stars are being equally productive at the same time.

Chrissie Hynde

The title of my new novel, is of course based on the 1981 song by The Pretenders. Penned by Chrissie Hynde, the music and lyrics offer a hopeful and positive feeling and a kicky beat. Hynde, a former resident of Akron, Ohio, had to leave the U.S. to find success in the United Kingdom. About a decade before me, Hynde attended Kent State University. Considering the numerous band member deaths and break-ups, it's no small irony of that I used a Pretenders song title for a story about love and trust between two young men.