Thursday, February 24, 2022

📚 10 Things You Might Not Know About In The Pink #InThePink #10things

I'm delighted to welcome Nicholas Garnett to the blog today as part of the blog tour for IN THE PINK, the exciting new memoir.

Nicholas Garnett received his MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. He has taught creative writing at FIU, the Miami Book Fair, and Writing Class Radio. Garnett is also a freelance editor and co-producer of the Miami-based live storytelling series, Lip Service: True Stories Out Loud. He is a recipient of residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and fellowships to the Norman Mailer Art Colony and Writers in Paradise. His writing has appeared, among other places, in Salon.com, Truehumor.com, Sundress Publication’s “Best of the Net” and Cleis Press’s Best Sex Writing.

His memoir, In the Pink, is forthcoming from MidTown Publishing in January 2022.

You can visit his website at www.nicholasgarnett.com or connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.

10 Things You Might Not Know About In the Pink

1. 1. Fifteen years after I started writing it, ten years after I thought I’d finished it, and a few weeks after I’d given up on it ever seeing the light of day, I received an offer to publish IN THE PINK.

2. 2. Back in 2011, I was invited to read an excerpt from my memoir at a popular live storytelling event. The scene I chose involved a hot tub, drugs, and sex in front of an audience of gay men. Single at the time, I told the producer of the show that my story would be sure to send any and all eligible women in the audience running for the exits. Seated in the front row that night was a divorced physician with two children. Denise and I met at the show’s after party. We were married a year later.

3. 3. That same story, which was published on Salon.com, drew the attention of one of the producers of the New Ricki Lake show. Denise, my fiancé at the time, appeared with me on the Lake show to discuss the dangers of open relationships. Two weeks later, the New Ricki Lake show went off the air. I don’t know if we had anything to do with it.

4. 4. Before it was published, In the Pink (which was my MFA thesis) was downloaded for free from a digital database of master’s and Doctoral theses more than 3,000 times by people all over the world, including: Mumbai, Moscow, Barcelona, Teheran, Hong Kong, Saigon, Amsterdam, Finland, Singapore, Nairobi, Jakarta, several cities in Germany, Poland, and Romania. I used to say I had created a whole new genre of book: International Non-seller.

5. 5. One of the main characters in In the Pink would spiral down from a world-renowned doctor famous for his AIDS-related research to an HIV-positive inmate in a federal prison, stripped of his medical license and convicted of distributing crystal meth. I’m relieved to say that he’s out of prison, sober, and doing well.

6. 6. As described in the memoir, my ex-wife and I opened and operated Washington, D.C.’s first doggie daycare facility. It’s still there—under different ownership.

7. 7. Since their heyday in the late 90s, every one of the mega-nightclubs described in In the Pink have either closed or operate now as mainstream businesses, including a deli, an office supply store, university dorms, and, saddest of all, a Mexican-themed franchise watering hole on Miami Beach, Sénior Frogs.

8. 8. One of the first people to ask to read In the Pink was my 17-year-old stepson. I knew I’d never be able to stop him, so I said yes. Watching him read the book, chock full of every activity I wouldn’t want him to try, may not have been the most awkward moment of my life—but it was close.

9. 9. The original final draft of In the Pink was 38,000 words longer that the version that was published--the equivalent of cutting every third word.

10. 10. The wonderfully provocative cover of In the Pink features a picture of my shoe dangling next to my wife’s. I’ll leave it up to the reader to guess which is which.

Washed out of another corporate job, scraping by playing drums in a wedding band, delivering roses in a tuxedo. This was Nicholas Garnett’s version of the go-go 90s. Then, beautiful, worldly, Rachael turns his world upside down, introducing him to her gay friends who occupy the upper crust of the burgeoning gay circuit party scene. Nick and Rachael marry. They become known as the hot straight couple that party hardy with the boys in all he right places—until their friends self-destruct, Rachael burrows into addiction, the marriage implodes, and Nick is out on the street again. Follow his harrowing journey as he struggles to find his way in a life that’s been buried beneath a lifestyle.

“In the Pink is a the story of a singular life, told coolly and cleanly, with admirable introspection. If I felt, at times, that Nicholas Garnett occupied an alternative universe — well, he did and I am glad that he decided to chronicle it with a refreshing lack of judgment for his fellow travelers — and himself.“—Laura Lippman, author of DREAM GIRL, LADY IN THE LAKE, and the Tess Monaghan series.

“By turns outrageous, hilarious, and truly moving, this unflinching chronicle of a profoundly mismatched straight couple’s foray into the gay party and power circuit sets a new standard for the tale of wretched excess, and provides much-needed perspective along the way. Nicholas Garnett has–no lie–produced a book like none other.”—Les Standiford, New York Times bestselling author of LAST TRAIN TO PARADISE and BRINGING ADAM HOME.

“I’ve just finished reading Nicholas Garnett’s electrifying memoir In the Pink, and now I need to catch my breath and recover. And then I’m going to read it again. Here is a gritty and lyrical portrait of what it’s like living life way out there on the edge, spinning out of control, and staring into the abyss. Astonishing and slightly terrifying.”—John Dufresne, author of LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT and REQUIEM, MASS.

“Fasten your seat belts and take this ride through the A-list, drug-fueled, sex-centric circuit party scene of the 1990’s with Nicholas Garnett. Like Bill Clegg’s memoir PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN and David Carr’s NIGHT OF THE GUN, In the Pink will terrify, startle, and ultimately make you sigh with relief over Garnett’s unflinching look at this world and his place in it.”—Ann Hood, New York Times bestselling author of COMFORT: A JOURNEY THROUGH GRIEF and THE KNITTING CIRCLE.

“In the Pink might read like one man’s heady quest to become the gayest straight man in America. But look deeper and it’s your story, what you’ve done to hang on to love, to live beyond labels while searching for your own, to find yourself after decades of getting so lost. Do yourself a favor: buy this book. Read it now.”—Anjanette Delgado, author of THE CLAIRVOYANT OF CALLE OCHO.