By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

You may recognize Bob Smith’s name (and face) from his years on the gay stand-up comedy circuit and his appearances on “The Tonight Show” and various gay comedy specials.  He established himself first as a member of the Funny Gay Males comedy troupe and later set out on his own for a successful solo run. As a funny gay male, Smith went on to make a name for himself as a writer, penning the late 1990s memoirs “Openly Bob” and “Way to Go, Smith.” His latest book, a novel titled “Selfish and Perverse” (Carroll & Graff, 2007, $26), is everything you want in a work of gay fiction. It’s unabashedly sexy, with moments of comedy and drama woven together to create the kind of quilt you’d want to snuggle under while reading a book set in Alaska.

Gregg Shapiro: How much of Bob Smith is in Nelson Kunker?

Bob Smith: There’s some of me in Nelson—he’s funny and observant, reads a lot, is adventurous, likes hot guys (laughs)—but he’s not me. I’ve known since high school that I wanted to write comedy; whether it was stand-up, essays and now a novel. I’ve never had writer’s block like Nelson and have always been driven. I found the cliché that all novelists say, “There’s something of me in every character” is true. Almost every character says something I agree with and perversely, I guess, something I also disagree with.

GS: You grew up in Buffalo, N.Y. and Nelson is supposed to be from Wisconsin, both of which have cold winter climates. Nelson even remarks that being from Wisconsin prepared him for being in Alaska. Would you say that being from Buffalo prepared you for the time you spent in Alaska?

BS: Yes. On my first visit to Alaska, I did a show in Anchorage and joked, “I’m from Buffalo. It’s the only place in the lower forty-eight where even Alaskans ask, “Buffalo? How can you take the winters?” I’m descended from a long line of Canadians and I’m very attracted to Northern lands. But I like the north during their brief summers when you get two days of sunlight in one day.  

GS: One of the most notable things about your debut novel “Selfish & Perverse” is that it is bursting what I would describe as “Bobisms.” Meaning that the language and the rhythm is similar to your stand-up style. Can you please say something about that?

BS: Thanks. I do believe that brevity is the soul of wit and try to write concisely in both my standup act and in the novel. For example, in the novel there's a line describing instant coffee as a magic trick that doesn't work for anyone. That wasn't me trying to be funny, as much as it was me trying to describe in the fewest number of words how instant coffee is always awful (laughs). Also, unlike standup where the goal of the humor is always get a huge laugh, the humor in my novel has every kind of joke that people use in their daily lives—from the repeated private jokes shared by friends to my invented contribution to gay slang, the word, “whorphan” which describes when a friend leaves you at a gay bar after he's picked up a trick. You're left a whorphan. I also tried to write dialogue that actually sounds like how my friends speak and my friends—including the non-comics—are really clever and witty.

GS: Throughout the novel, there are references to both classical lit and pop culture. How would you say that each informs your work?

BS: Well, I studied at the University of Buffalo when they had one of the best English departments in the country. I have a B.A. in English with an emphasis on creative writing and some of my teachers were literary legends like Eric Bentley and Leslie Fiedler. So I’ve always been a bookworm. But I love Anton Chekhov and also love “I Love Lucy.” And I think that’s the situation for most American artists. We’re able to appreciate the diversity of our artistic culture. But hopefully we like the best of both worlds—the great sitcoms and films and the great novels.  All of the books I mention in “Selfish and Perverse” are works of art that I love.

GS: At least two novels published in 2007 are set in Alaska—yours and Michael Chabon’s “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.” What do you think is the significance of that?

BS: Alaska is an amazing place; it’s a foreign country inhabited by Americans. I’ve been up there over 12 times and have traveled all over the state. And I’m always thrillingly happy to be there. Many of the GLBT people I met up there grew up in the lower 48 and they said that they’d visited in their 20s and just had to move there. I think if I’d visited there in my 20s, I would have also.

GS: Speaking of Chabon, you make a reference to him and his book “The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.” Is he someone that you would consider to be an influence on your fiction?

BS: I think he writes wonderfully entertaining novels that are also works of art. Christopher Isherwood once said to Armistead Maupin, “Never apologize for being entertaining,” and I think that’s a reasonable motto for an artist to live by. 

GS: There’s a great moment in the novel where Dylan offers what he perceives to be constructive criticism to Nelson about the first line of his novel. Did you receive much feedback from people who read the first line of “Selfish & Perverse”—“Love at first sight makes perfect sense because we're all pressed for time”—prior to its publication?

BS: No. I wanted to write something that would get the reader’s attention and knew when I had it. That opening just sounded right to me. However, several writer friends of mine read early drafts of the book and their feedback was extremely valuable.

GS: The sex scene in the book, the three-way between Nelson, Roy and Dylan, is very arousing. Did you struggle with writing such a scene or did it come easily to you?

BS: I started with an outline for the story but the sex scene was kind of a surprise because I didn’t realize that there had to be a three-way until I was writing the novel. It took a very long time to write that chapter because I didn’t want to write porn, but I also thought, “Who wants to read a sex scene that isn’t sexy?”  It’s also a humorous sex scene, which I think actually keeps it real.

GS: In the movie version of “Selfish & Perverse,” who would you want to see cast in the lead roles?

BS: I think Seann William Scott would make a terrific Dylan (the troubled movie actor in the book). He doesn’t have a hairy chest but he’s sexy and muscular and has a devious quality to him. I haven’t really thought about Nelson and Roy, but of course I’m willing to audition hotties of all ages just in case there is a movie (laughs). 

GS: Shortly before the publication of the book there was one of those publishing industry shake-ups that occurs every few years, resulting in the dissembling of the press that published “Selfish & Perverse.” Will this affect, say, the paperback edition of the novel?

BS: I’m not sure what’s going to happen. The new owner of Carroll & Graf, Perseus Books has been very supportive of my book, but my wonderful editor Don Weise lost his job and that was and is horribly upsetting.