You may already know Frank Anthony Polito from the Advocate report that the Facebook fan page Polito had created for his June 2008 book Band Fags! was shuttered unceremoniously. Closure and subsequent reinstatement set tongues wagging about why Polito’s artistic use of the f-word should be penalized while plenty of other Facebook pages spout the term derogatorily. One positive outcome of this unfortunate event: Polito's novel has rocketed up the Amazon charts.
Let’s hope the Facebook powers-that-be don’t find issue with Polito’s second novel Drama Queers! This book follows closely on the heels of the first, and retells ’80s suburban-Detroit coming of age through the eyes of Bradley Dayton, whom we met in Band Fags! Skip the Ambien and spend your next long-haul flight with this pleasure read. Here Polito lets us into his writing process, and the dramatic narrative that it yielded.
Releasing two books a year apart sounds tireless.
“My editor thinks, especially when you’re starting out, that you need to stay on people’s radar. Band Fags! is based on a play that I wrote, so it was pretty quick to fill in those blanks. The second one took longer. And I’m not pretending these are great works of literature. They’re fun and lighthearted, and they have some emotional content to them.
“I also write in the first person, as if this kid is telling you a story. There's not too much detailed atmosphere or history to write."
There are moments when Brad stops the action, though, and explains some ’80s pop-culture reference. Are you channeling Brad, the teenager who presumes that not everybody understands him? Or is this a veiled attempt to indoctrinate younger readers?
“It’s totally more the first. When you’re a teenager your finger is on the pulse of everything. That was the case for me: Name an ’80s song and I can tell you what grade I was in when it came out. There were one or two things that required a little research, because the character of Brad is based on my best friend and he and I had a few different interests. But most things, even trivial facts, are still in my brain after 25 years.”
Your description of New York circa 1988 is vivid. When did you first come here?
“It was 1989. Somebody pointed out to me that the 9 train didn’t exist in 1988, but launched in 1989. I wrote what I remembered. But I did call up a friend to make sure that the subway fare was $1.
“I actually did audition for Juilliard much later than that, so I channeled a part of my own experience into Brad’s story.”
And did you choke, too?
“I did my monologue and they were done with me. It was very heartbreaking. But then I started writing plays and novels.”
How long have you lived in New York full-time?
“I've been in New York since 1995."
Will your characters ultimately move from Detroit to New York, like yourself?
“I’ve had people say to me that they would like to know what happens to Brad in college, or they want to see Jack [Paterno] living in New York. I don’t know if these characters will take the same path I took, but having lived in Michigan for 25 years and New York for 16, I would like to write something about New York. It’s on my schedule.
“I also assume that a lot of writers have written about New York, and not many have written about Hazel Park. I like that it makes those people feel their town is on the map, so to speak.”
How do you tackle the work of writing?
“I usually average about a page an hour, between the writing, revising, and rewriting. Something I learned in grad school is that you have to write everyday. At first you think, That’s ridiculous. But if I take a day off I get frustrated. There’s some truth to the cliché that these characters are living inside your head. And you want to write something down in order to not forget it.”
You're now working on a third novel set in Hazel Park. When will that drop?
Because the story is set in 2012 -- it’s this kid who lives in 2012 and, through a certain experience, he ends up finding himself in 1994 and meeting his parents -- I really want to get it out there in 2012.