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[Will:] Coming up on this episode, we discuss the new biography of Keith Haring with its author, Brad Gooch.

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[Jeff:] Welcome to episode 449 of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast,

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the show for avid readers and passionate fans of queer romance fiction. I'm Jeff,

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and with me as always, is my co-host and husband, Will.

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[Will:] Hello, Rainbow Romance Reader. We are so glad that you could join us

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for another episode of the show. Before we get to our interview with Brad, [Jeff:],

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I know you've got a couple of books that you want to tell us all about.

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[Jeff:] Yes, I do. I've had some great reading recently. First up I want to talk about a new

0:37

YA novel from Lee Wind. Now I discovered Lee back in 2019 because of his incredible book,

0:43

"Queer as a Five Dollar Bill," which is a YA book about the backlash a teenager

0:47

faces when he tells the world about evidence he's uncovered that Abraham Lincoln was gay.

0:53

And you can actually hear Lee talk about that book back in episode 194.

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Lee is back now with a brand new book. This time it's a thriller called "A Different Kind

1:01

of Brave." I am so thrilled to have had the chance to read an advanced copy of this and

1:07

that I ended up having a blurb, on the book alongside two of my YA heroes, Alex Sanchez,

1:13

who did the "Rainbow Boys" trilogy, and Brent Hartinger, who is probably best known for the

1:17

"Geography Club." Now, here's what I said on that blurb about this book. "'A Different Kind

1:23

of Brave" is a thrilling adventure and romance that gripped me from the first page with a daring

1:27

escape. Nico and Sam's story is one of courage and self-discovery that Lee Wind has masterfully

1:34

told while also paying tribute to James Bond. Readers are gonna love this tale of rebellion,

1:39

standing up for what's right, the struggle for identity, and young love. I already

1:44

need the next installment." And I so, so hope Lee is already at work on that book.

1:49

So, what exactly is "A Different Kind of Brave?" Well, you've got Nico, who is 16

1:53

when the story opens, and he's escaping from a gay conversion camp. He takes on one identity

1:59

after another to escape and get to a safe place where the evil Dr. H can't find him. Meanwhile,

2:06

Sam couldn't be more different, living a privileged life on the Upper West Side of

2:09

Manhattan. He's got good friends, an obsession with James Bond, and along with that he's got a

2:15

broken heart and parents who kind of leave him too much to his own devices for his own good.

2:21

In the early part of the book, we follow Nico as he's looking for that safe place to be,

2:25

including a great turn as a cruise ship porter. And then we've got Sam, who's navigating his

2:30

breakup and his desire to maybe live life more like James Bond. When they meet up in Mexico,

2:36

where Nico's gotten a job at a resort and Sam is spending his birthday alone because

2:41

his parents decided he'd be fine while they went off and did something else,

2:45

they actually have a bit of a bumpy go at first. But as they spend more time together,

2:49

they find some sparks in there, but they can't quite make the full connection. Ultimately,

2:55

Sam heads back to New York just as Nico's location is discovered and he's no longer safe.

3:00

Now, I'm not gonna say any more about the plot here because this is a thriller,

3:04

and you need to uncover those twists and turns for yourself. But I will say that Lee does an

3:09

incredible job of keeping the tension up and the curve balls coming. I love what he puts these two

3:14

regular teenagers through to keep Nico safe and to also, through it all, get Nico and Sam

3:21

together to become a couple. He balances their romance and the thriller aspects so beautifully.

3:27

In particular, I like how much we see of these guys before they even have their first meeting,

3:33

as they're both just going about their lives with Nico on the run and Sam doing what he's doing to

3:39

like, try to put his life into some kind of order. We understand exactly who they are, which allows

3:44

us to appreciate the growth that they experience as they realize what they're truly capable of.

3:50

Lee's given them some great support, too. Some wonderful people help Nico as he flees,

3:55

including a man on the cruise ship and the resort owner. And those friends that Sam has,

4:01

one of them happens to be a Q type who's making some very cool gadgets for him to use,

4:06

almost like a real-life James Bond. If you like YA thrillers, I really hope you'll give "A Different

4:12

Kind of Brave" a try. Like I said in my blurb, I am already so eager for that next adventure.

4:18

And another book that has come out this month that I have to share is the tenth book in

4:22

Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" series. This one's called "Mona of the Manor." Now Mona,

4:28

as you might remember, is Anna Madrigal’s daughter and also Michael Tolliver’s best

4:32

friend. In "Mona of the Manor" we catch up with her in the early 1990s as she's living in England

4:39

and is now the owner of a grand country manor, which she's kind of turned into a B and B sort

4:44

of thing to help her make ends meet. Now, how'd she end up with that manor you might ask. Well,

4:49

she married Lord Teddy Roughton to help Teddy get a visa so that he could stay in

4:54

San Francisco and live out his dream life. But now that Teddy has passed,

4:59

she's got the manor house where she also lives with her twenty-something adopted son, Wilfred.

5:05

As we drop in on Mona, she's preparing for some American tourists who are gonna be staying with

5:10

her. Rhonda and Ernie Blaylock are gonna be staying at the manor for several days, and it

5:15

quickly becomes apparent, however, that Rhonda might be in over her head and might need some

5:20

help. And of course, Mona and Wilfred are gonna come to her aid. And at the same time all that's

5:25

happening, they're getting ready to welcome Anna and Michael, who are gonna come for a visit. Oh,

5:31

and one other thing, the midsummer ceremony is also right around the corner, and there's

5:35

a lot of preparation to do for that because it's actually gonna be taking place on the grounds of

5:39

the manor house. Through all this, Mona has a maybe girlfriend or maybe not a girlfriend,

5:46

and is it somebody that she feels that she can actually have a commitment with? Mona's

5:51

romance in this book is so wonderful as she tries to figure out what exactly she wants,

5:56

what it all might mean to open herself up to love again in that way. It's just wonderful.

6:02

I loved so much being back in the world of "Tales of this City." It's so nice to be able

6:07

to catch up with these characters and see what's going on. And it was such a wonderful delight

6:12

to discover how Mona deals with running this manor house between keeping the maintenance up,

6:17

and taking care of the guests, and doing what's kind of expected of the manor house

6:22

owner within the community that she's in. I have to say that it's not that far away

6:27

from what she was doing in some of the original trilogy when she was working back at the brothel

6:31

in Winnemucca. And the relationships she's got with Wilfred. It's really

6:35

not that unlike how Mona and Anna relate to each other. It's really so brilliant.

6:41

As I mentioned, Mona's romance here is just sublime and so very much her in the way that

6:46

it happens when you think about the other relationships that she's had throughout this

6:50

series. And the resolution of what's going on between Rhonda and Ernie is so much what

6:56

you might expect from Maupin when you consider how he has resolved similar things in the past

7:02

through these books. Yes, I'm being a little vague there because I don't want to give too much away,

7:06

but when you read it, I think you'll go, hmm. I see exactly how we got to this point.

7:11

If you're a fan of "Tales of the City" and of Armistead Maupin, I highly recommend you make

7:16

the time in your reading schedule for "Mona of the Manor." And if you've never read "Tales of

7:21

the City," well, this is a perfect time to just drop whatever you're doing and start in with

7:25

book one and just binge through the whole lot. They are perfection in giving a story with so

7:30

many memorable characters telling a story that unfolds over decades about friendship, and love,

7:36

and laughter, sadness, and loss. You really won't find better in terms of an epic story.

7:42

And now I want to talk just a little bit about "Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring"

7:47

by Brad Gooch. You're gonna hear a lot in the interview about what I liked as Brad,

7:51

and I have our conversation. But I have to say it was this book that I ended my 2023 reading

7:57

year with, and what I began 2024, and this was such a wonderful book to bridge into the new

8:04

year with. The book had already been on my radar as something I wanted to get this year because

8:09

I'm such a fan of Keith Haring's art, along with his activism during the late eighties and early

8:14

nineties around the AIDS epidemic. And even if you don't know Haring's name for some reason,

8:18

you're likely to know his art between some of the iconic images of the barking dog

8:23

that he drew, and the radiant baby that shows up in a lot of his art,

8:27

and iconic imagery that he's created for things like the National Coming Out Day logo.

8:32

"Radiant "covers absolutely everything about Haring from some of his earliest

8:35

drawings as a child, his street and subway art in New York City, his friendship with

8:41

fellow artists like Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat, the worldwide embracing of his art,

8:47

his work with kids, all the way up through his untimely death in 1990, at the age of 31.

8:53

I've never read a biography that was such a page turner like this one is. I have

8:58

to say that I was really annoyed every time I had to put it down because Brad

9:02

tells Keith's story in such a compelling fashion. It's the history of an artist,

9:07

activist, and philanthropist, the history of art and nightlife and queerness in New

9:12

York City through the eighties. It all comes together so beautifully.

9:16

So, if you're interested in a great biography of a really great artist,

9:19

or if you're a fan of Haring's work overall, or maybe you want to read about what New York

9:25

was like through this point of view, through that time in the eighties,

9:28

you really cannot go wrong picking up, "Radiant: The Life and Line of Keith Haring."

9:33

And now let's get into my conversation with Brad Gooch. It's not often that we talk about

9:37

nonfiction books. We are a fiction podcast after all, but sometimes the book is so compelling,

9:43

we have to bring you more about it, and that's definitely the case with "Radiant."

9:47

As I said in the review just a moment ago, this was a page turner as it told the story

9:51

of Keith Haring alongside so much queer history with gay rights, the AIDS epidemic,

9:57

and the pop culture of the time, and we could not pass up the opportunity to discuss it with Brad.

10:03

I don't think it's much of a leap to say that the creative work that Haring and others at the time

10:07

put out, and how it advocated for queer rights, is part of the numerous happenings from the eighties

10:13

onward that together helped us to have the queer romance genre that we have today. The conversation

10:19

with Brad is so good as he shares some of his personal connections with Haring, the interviews

10:24

and research he did, the surprising things that he learned along the way, and how Haring was

10:30

ahead of his time in thinking of his art, and how to sell it, and what his legacy is today.

10:37

Brad, welcome to the podcast. It is wonderful to have you

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here to talk about this amazing biography.

10:42

[Brad:] Happy to be here. [Jeff:] Tell everyone in your own words what "Radiant" is about.

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[Brad:] Well, I'm looking at the subtitle, "The Life and Line of Keith Haring." So, I mean,

10:57

that's the simple answer, right? It's the life and art of Keith Haring and told Birth to Death

11:03

in classic biography, fashion which hadn't been done actually with him. I also wanted

11:11

to capture the period of the eighties which he was such an important leader and spirit.

11:19

And so, for that, I also wanted to fill in things that people might have forgotten,

11:24

like what the Mud Club was or what Club 57 was, or what AIDS was really like for our

11:31

generation at that time. I mean, some of this is not, you can't take for granted that it's

11:38

common knowledge. So, it's his world and his mission that he was on with his art.

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[Jeff:] The mission is really interesting, and we'll probably dig in a little bit more

11:49

about that as we go. But even as a fan of his art over time, I think the first time I saw

11:56

one was about the time I was dating my husband and getting to know him in the middle nineties.

12:03

He had a National Coming Out Day shirt, which of course features Keith's art of the guy breaking

12:08

out of the closet door. And I think that was the first time I'd seen that. And from

12:12

there it's like, this is really amazing art that says a lot too, even in its simpleness.

12:18

[Brad:] Yeah, I mean, the "says a lot is" important. There's an early journal of

12:23

Keith's when he first came to New York City, and he was at School of Visual Arts. And what

12:27

you realize in these journals of Keith, even when he is in fourth grade, I mean

12:31

there's a consistency of person and tone there. He said in this, that the medium is the medium.

12:38

Marshall McLuhan said the medium is the message. He was basically saying, I am communicating. And

12:47

he was trying to communicate something. He wasn't ironic. He wasn't an artist of surface

12:54

of which there was a lot at that time, a lot of appropriation, and conceptual art.

13:00

And in his own language that he developed, his own original, visual language, was communicating

13:09

his different passions and having fun. But certainly, in there was a lot of activism and so,

13:17

and certainly from the beginning, gay liberation, gay activism just that he

13:23

was drawing all these penises and SVA was a kiss of death at the time and a statement.

13:31

So, simply his casualness about being gay in the beginning and then the politics associated

13:40

with it. And then towards the end of the decade, his AIDS activism was all

13:45

sort of pouring out through this art and you can feel it. I mean, you can see it.

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[Jeff:] And yet at the same time, he is doing a lot of art geared specifically for children too.

13:57

He was very heavily influencing getting art into schools, getting art to where kids are,

14:04

and trying to inspire them while he's doing this major activism as well.

14:09

[Brad:] Right. Yeah. I mean, he had the kids part of his life was, one of the revelations to me,

14:15

I think. I mean, that he sort of… a elementary school teacher writes to him from Iowa about

14:22

that her class would like him to come. And he goes and teaches in art class,

14:28

and stays in touch with these kids, and has these relationships with kids that are very real.

14:34

I mean, I loved some of my most interesting and fun interviews were with these now adults.

14:42

Sean Lennon was one of them. I mean, he had a relationship as a 9-year-old kid

14:47

with Keith Haring and was very marked by it. And those kinds of friendships are really,

14:55

really fascinating because they weren't made up. He would sit at the kids' table at these dinners,

15:02

and he liked kids because they would take out paper and start drawing. So, he had a big kid

15:10

kind of aspect to him. And then that innocence is also something that registers in the work.

15:17

So, you get these kinds of combinations of kind of innocence, naivete yet serious subject matter

15:24

at the same time, something cartoony about his work. That's why people respond to it.

15:31

I mean also Sean Lennon in the interview was saying that he was very different than Andy

15:35

Warhol, who was another friend of his mother, Yoko Ono's, who was around. But he said,

15:40

but Andy was kind of chic in a certain way and more blazers and things. And also his

15:45

art. He didn't really understand. His art wasn't really made for nine-year-olds. There

15:50

was a concept to it. Whereas with Keith, the way that he dressed in sneakers and t-shirts,

15:55

it was a style that he got. He understood as a middle school child in New York City

16:01

and all. And also, the work, I mean, these, those kinds of pop cartoony kind

16:06

of images and energy and line also were communicated pretty directly.

16:12

[Jeff:] And I suppose before I kind of went and deep dove it a

16:15

few places I should have maybe asked what was it about Keith that inspired

16:20

you to write this comprehensive book about his life and his art?

16:24

[Brad:] Well, it began for me in the eighties. I mean, I was in New York at the same time that he

16:30

was. And so. I was aware of him and crossed paths with his art and with him. I mean,

16:38

you were talking about your first experience of Keith's art. Mine was walking with my

16:44

lover at the time from the West Village where I lived, to the East Village where Howard lived.

16:50

And on the sidewalks at each corner, stamped in graphite, said "clones go home." And it

16:57

was this fake organization Keith started "Fags Against Facial Hair" and it was like

17:02

an inside gay joke because gays in the West Village were more stereotypically

17:09

leather guys and had beards and chains, and a western cowboy thing. And the East village

17:14

was younger and artier and more new wave punk. So, Howard said to me, I remember,

17:19

you should go, you have to go home, you know, because that was my first.

17:23

And then I would see in Soho on a newsstand his radiant babies drawn in magic marker. We

17:31

didn't know who was doing this. And also personally, he supposedly came

17:36

to a book party that Dennis Cooper and I gave for ourselves together at Limelight.

17:40

I remember seeing him at the reopening of the Apollo Theater and a whole sort of

17:46

aisle filled up with Keith and his fantastic posse, mostly Black and Latin men and women.

17:54

When Howard then was sick with AIDS, Keith kind of characteristically gave money for

18:00

his care. And I remember, and he came to the funeral. I remember him in the

18:04

back looking kind of spooked because he was within a year of his own death. At that time,

18:09

I always developed, had carried with me this idea of wanting to write a novel about Keith Haring.

18:15

Especially in the nineties when those figures from the eighties we're starting to fade,

18:19

it seemed. I mean, they haven't but briefly. And I kind of carried this with me,

18:25

and finally when there was a moment where I had time and it would make sense to do such a book,

18:32

I realized that I don't really like books, novels about famous artists.

18:37

And Keith's this kind of Guinness Book of Records,

18:42

facts of his life. And this 10-year comet of a career is so amazing just in terms

18:49

of the details and the facts of it that I thought it should be all told in one way.

18:56

And also, I think, at the time, when I finally began doing this, whenever that was around 2018,

19:04

you could feel that Keith Haring was beginning to be taken seriously as an artist in a way that he

19:13

maybe he hadn't been. And I remember going to a show, and other people have different

19:20

versions of this experience, going to a show at Tate Liverpool. And it was a retrospective of

19:27

Keith Haring work. And there wasn't eighties music playing. It wasn't like trying to recreate a club.

19:34

And then you saw, I mean, 30 feet long drawings and things that were really

19:40

powerful artworks and you realized that they endured and that he intended that

19:46

in some way. So, all of this kind of came together for me to do the book.

19:53

[Jeff:] It's interesting that you mentioned the idea of the novel because the storytelling

19:58

in it is such that in some ways it feels like you could be reading fiction, just by the way

20:03

it's all structured because amongst all the facts and the figures and like the accolades

20:09

that he got and how he lived his life, is this story of this person who was driven to create.

20:17

[Brad:] Yeah. I mean, I always thought of biography that way anyway. In some ways, like

20:23

a 19th century novel with birth to death, there's a kind of traditional form to it. But then you

20:28

have all this information. We love information. I love information. So, streaming them together

20:35

kind of made sense to me and Keith was such a forward moving kind of figure and person. I mean,

20:43

he was in constant motion. And so, writing it, I got on that subway train, the express, and there's

20:52

always crowding around all this… other people, other events, other works of art that you wanted

20:58

to include. And you can't include everything. And that's what his life was like. It was very

21:05

crowded. And yet he had some sort of inner compass that he just worked his way through. It was very

21:15

work positive and created 10,000 works of art in a decade, half of them subway drawings. And

21:23

so that kind of tagging along with Keith Haring you have kind of forward momentum.

21:31

[Jeff:] As I was reading it, I was thinking about other biographies I've read and sometimes it's

21:36

like, okay, I've read a chapter or two and I'm good and I'm gonna move on. But for me,

21:40

this was always like, I don't want to stop. I need to see what's next,

21:44

what's going to happen because I didn't know the thread of his life. There were like certain

21:49

things I knew, certain pieces that I'd seen. I've seen a couple documentaries,

21:55

but this was everything. If ever there was like to be an A to Z of Keith Haring, I think this is it.

22:00

[Brad:] But also, I mean, how much thanks to him, I mean, just how,

22:05

what happened to him or what he made happen in 10 years is so extraordinary. That's what I sort

22:13

of saying a minute ago. There's a forward momentum to all this. And how did you get

22:17

here? Keith had a show, his first show, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, when he was 24 years old,

22:24

was a big enough event that it was carried on the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" and Charles

22:30

Osgood was the reporter. It's shown up recently because Osgood died. that's one of the reports of

22:36

his that they've been showing. And because it was an opening unlike any that had been seen.

22:43

Keith's boyfriend was a DJ and there were like all these street kids besides regular artists.

22:48

And he was creating a new, not only a new kind of art,

22:52

but a new audience for art too. There's a politics to what was going on. So, you're

22:59

sort of like, how did we get here? He was just in Kutztown six years ago. How did we get here?

23:07

And after he dies, there's a memorial service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine,

23:13

which is this kind of formal funeral of the type they gave to Fiorello La Guardia,

23:19

James Baldwin, George Balanchine. There are thousands of people there. Jessye

23:23

Norman sings. The New York City Ballet dances. And again, you're like, how did we get here?

23:28

And so that, I think that question keeps going through. And he's also discovering how to be an

23:35

artist and how to work. His dealer, Tony Shafrazi, said to me that Keith was a sponge. And he really

23:42

was. So, he is taking from everything that's going on in the streets and in his life and

23:48

putting it in all the time. So, you also feel his kind of discovery and his trying to top himself

23:56

and his trying to change the world in some way. I think, I mean, I think he, he did think that way.

24:03

[Jeff:] That definitely comes through, I mean,

24:06

just by the kind of art he wanted to do and the places he wanted it to be. But also having

24:11

the forethought to set up the foundation at such a young age to go, "Oh, legacy,

24:17

foundation. This work needs to have purpose and continue," was just amazing because I

24:23

don't think in the midst of the eighties that a lot of people were thinking foundation.

24:27

[Brad:] No. Well there are many things they weren't thinking. He was the only

24:32

during his life, I mean the only art star of that period, I mean, who was doing all

24:37

this stuff with CityKids and doing all this kind of political action and AIDS action. And then,

24:44

and you're right. When he is about 28, he just sets up the foundation. And sets up the

24:51

board of directors. But he also sets it up so that it's sort of half protecting his legacy,

24:57

which is what artists do. But also, half then giving money to organizations having

25:04

to do with young people with AIDS, with pediatric AIDS. And that foundation has

25:11

given away over $43 million since his death. So, all that, something he thought of and planned.

25:20

[Jeff:] What was the research experience like for you? You mentioned starting in 2018. So,

25:25

this was obviously a multi-year experience.

25:27

[Brad:] It was about a six-year experience and went through Covid and all these things. But

25:32

I mean, the main part, I had the agreement of the foundation that I could work on this. So,

25:40

and the foundation is in Keith's old studio on lower on Broadway.

25:45

So going to Keith's studio every day and looked through everything.

25:52

And Keith was very bio prepared. I mean, some people are, and some people aren't

25:57

probably. But he was pretty… he didn't throw anything away. So,

26:01

if you want to look at Keith Haring's Con Ed bills from when he was 18 years old, you can, and I did.

26:08

And there's a lot of work to go through and a lot of books and he kept… he had his sneakers,

26:12

and he had his glasses and his passports and his driver's licenses and just all of this.

26:19

So that was one piece of it. The other was I interviewed over 200 people for the book and,

26:26

again, because and this is true of this AIDS generation, which they died,

26:33

right? But they're young. So, their friends and the people who knew them or, like me,

26:37

were still alive. So, there were all these people to talk to who knew Keith Haring,

26:44

some of whom have been talked to a lot, some of whom have never been talked to.

26:48

And all types because he was very inclusive and social, and it was just kind of fascinating. So,

26:57

there was also the interviewing. Both of those had to adapt to covid. So,

27:03

the foundation at a certain point then had to set up a portal for me online where I could then go

27:11

through video and photographs and Polaroids and things online because you couldn't... no one was

27:16

going into the office anymore. And similarly, then interviewing became a matter of Zoom,

27:24

like we are now, or all these different FaceTime and phones and which, I actually didn't mind. I

27:30

thought it actually worked pretty well. People were kind of focused and it was all helpful.

27:37

I had more time to write because Covid was a quieter time. So,

27:43

it worked out different ways. But it was a long process.

27:46

[Jeff:] You've also got your own, as you mentioned, experience at the time and you've

27:51

written your own memoir about the eighties with "Smash Cut." What was it like to kind of relive

27:56

all of that as you put all this research together to then go forth in this book?

28:02

[Brad:] It was great. I mean, it was in a way,

28:05

because I've written biographies before like about Frank O'Hara in the fifties and sixties,

28:11

but to actually know these places and have been to them and it was very helpful in terms of, I think

28:19

getting things right. And people respond to that in the book that, I mean, that's kind of a change

28:24

when I like wrote "City Poet" about Frank O'Hara whenever that was, years ago, 30 or something.

28:34

I remember someone said to me, oh, you never met him, did you? And I said, no,

28:37

this, because if you'd even met him once, it wouldn't be possible to do a biography of him. So,

28:43

there's this idea of like objectivity or something, you know. But we're in a different,

28:48

we're in the era of the memoir and a kind of casual, a different kind of casualness. And

28:54

I thought it was helpful to have known that world, to have known those people to help,

29:02

to get it right, I think. And also, Keith lends himself towards that treatment because

29:09

he was so casual, and he was not formal, and he pushed high and low together all the time.

29:19

Another aspect of that in terms of working on the book also is it was kind of the first,

29:25

I mean, Keith loved video and it was kind of the first generation where things were

29:32

really covered. Like there's a lot of footage of Keith in action or of him doing things and

29:39

all these photographs and Polaroids and television interviews and things.

29:42

So, it was a different kind of information that I was able to take in. I mean now we

29:50

have like wall-to-wall carpeting of coverage. So,

29:54

I don’t know what that will be like. We don't need biographies and I would

29:58

just have selfies. But he was just at that moment where it was interesting that way.

30:04

And the other thing that was interesting in terms of interviews is the different,

30:07

you had to kind of meet everyone in their medium, which would be different. Keith had a girlfriend,

30:13

Susie, for two years in Pittsburgh who no one's ever interviewed or talked to. And I

30:18

did. And it was interesting, but it turned out that she really liked Facebook DMs.

30:24

So, I mean, our interview was one thing, and then kind of over a year or two I get into

30:28

these badminton games of conversations with her and became far more revealing,

30:35

like a lot of more pieces of information came. And some people like Facebook and

30:41

some people like to talk on the phone and some people like to email and text and

30:46

you had to kind of find people where they... the medium in which they preferred to live.

30:53

[Jeff:] How did some of the people like Susie react to, "Oh, you want to talk

30:58

about Keith? Sure." When they've never been talked to before? Because I imagine there

31:02

are people who are talked to for everything and then given the depth of the interviews,

31:06

a lot of people who've never been talked to at all, as you mentioned, like again, with Susie.

31:10

[Brad:] Yeah, I mean, she has a different case in that she didn't want to be talked to. Yeah.

31:15

And so that. But she came around thanks to Facebook and had an important thing to tell.

31:24

It was the seventies. They had a certain kind of relationship, and they hitchhiked across the

31:33

country together and all this stuff. And it was slightly a mess. And then Keith started coming

31:39

out in Pittsburgh. And so it was that kind of story. So, I don't… there are aspects of it now

31:45

that she's married and a mother of three and a grandmother… and that no one's really connected.

31:53

That part of her life was kind of left behind and people don't connect her with that really. So,

31:59

it was being public about something in, in that way that was her own case.

32:06

But the other was, yeah, there were all kinds of people who had never been talked to and

32:10

that was interesting to me because you get to a case of usual suspects and talking heads in,

32:21

say, Keith Haring documentaries, and then you see the same people telling similar stories,

32:26

but aging as you, as the, as the years go by.

32:32

But he went to School of Visual Arts. I talked to a dozen, two dozen other students who were

32:39

there with him, and you get Keith Haring stories that have been never told and are completely in

32:44

character. Someone was telling me about him. He would, like, he was into performance art and so

32:50

he would like straddle the banister where the students are going up to go to class.

32:55

And he did a video, and this is how he met his friend Kenny Scharf,

33:00

painting himself into a corner, that he was videotaping himself doing this with

33:05

Devo music on the boombox. And so, all these little pieces. It's like,

33:11

oh, that's Keith Haring and I didn't really know that. So, so it was great.

33:17

I mean, especially from that time, I mean, people who knew him early. I mean,

33:22

that was the magic hour coming to New York in 1978. I mean, I was here, and it I just

33:29

remember at the time you would kind of say, this is great... entirely with something that was like,

33:36

oh, it was horrible. Steve Rubell once told me about Studio 54. Oh, people remember it

33:41

better than it was, but there was some aspect that you did realize,

33:45

like, this is great. And so, it wasn't just... they were giving it like a fake rosy appeal.

33:53

[Jeff:] It's interesting, you mentioning Rubell made me think of this, that because

33:59

of the timeframe you're covering and all the places that Keith ran in circles with,

34:04

we get these glimpses of other things that are almost of a broader cultural

34:10

touchstone like Steve Rubell and 54. But then you get so much more because I think,

34:16

at least for me, when I think of Studio 54 and Steve Rubell,

34:20

his story kind of ends right after 54 and the tax thing and he goes to jail. But then there's him

34:27

and his wife who do so much more. That's not really touched on, at least that I've seen.

34:34

And then these other things, like the rise of MTV, and Madonna shows up a lot through the book too,

34:40

with her interaction with Keith. And for those of us who grew up in the time because I was in

34:45

my teens and early twenties through the eighties. You put all these other pieces

34:50

together of things that, depending on where you grew up, you may not know about some of

34:54

them or just smaller pieces than the picture you've painted here.

34:58

[Brad:] Right. Well, I mean, another, a part of the idea was a history. I mean, I, in that way,

35:04

I saw "City Poet," the Frank O'Hara book, is kind of a history of the culture in downtown

35:10

in Manhattan and Bohemian art of a certain period. And this is like a continuation of that into the

35:16

eighties in the same way that generation came here because they wanted to be Andy Warhol at

35:22

The Factory, or poets wanted to be Frank O'Hara. So, it's interesting to me, like history of that

35:31

culture. And what's great about biography is then you get it from these different angles.

35:36

I mean, we know Madonna's story. But then you see Keith's Madonna and Madonna's Keith,

35:43

and it's very interesting. And they're kind of fighting over the same Spanish boys. And

35:48

she's sleeping on the couch. And the way she talks about it, that they're kind of separated

35:53

at birth. They both come out of this little downtown, "Desperately Seeking Susan" scene,

36:00

and they take this, they take that aesthetic, and they go global with it.

36:06

And while they're doing that, they get a certain amount of envy and pushback and flack because

36:12

they're like really growing fast. Then when that started to happen, they both suffered some pain

36:22

from that and the stress of all that. But it was just interesting to see these figures.

36:27

Or Andy Warhol. One of the discoveries for me in the book, I think,

36:32

was how close that relationship was between Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. And I mean,

36:39

they really had a kind of personal relationship of sort of being on the

36:43

phone every morning to download the gossip of the night before. But also,

36:50

that obviously Warhol's aesthetic of pop art was the major influence on Keith.

36:57

And at the same time, then Andy was benefiting in ways from being connected to the energy of this

37:05

Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Keith Haring, and this whole party that was going on around them. So,

37:12

all that was interesting. It was just like another way into all these pieces.

37:17

Keith Haring and Ronald Reagan, Keith Haring, I mean, so it's all happening, the historical events

37:23

are happening. And Keith is the kind of artist who treats them and makes art about a lot of this

37:29

stuff. He's a good person to tell history through, because he was also unusually... this is true of

37:35

Frank O'Hara too. I mean, Frank O'Hara was not a poet who was in his garret and writing poems by

37:40

himself, right? He was writing poems at parties, and he had a job at the Museum of Modern Art.

37:46

And Keith was also very social guy. He wasn't a studio artist in that sense,

37:53

and unusually generous. So, he was very interested in other people's work. He was

37:58

curating shows from the beginning at Club 57 and Mud Club and building community. That was

38:05

an interest of his. So, he touched all these lives and therefore reflected history and made history.

38:11

[Jeff:] Reagan was one of my favorite sort of sequences in the book. I never

38:16

imagined somebody with Keith's advocacy in gay liberation and the AIDS crisis

38:23

could possibly be invited to the Reagan White House for anything.

38:28

[Brad:] Another thing about biography is there are always facts every so often that don't fit,

38:34

and you just have to deal with it. So, I mean, when looking at Keith as a kid in high school,

38:42

he was smoking pot and doing and taking acid and doing all this stuff.

38:47

And then there's like this letter from the Nixon campaign thanking him for his

38:52

contribution. And he was in a Republican, very Republican household. And then you realize,

38:56

like it all doesn't fit together. I mean, he in that. And so likewise,

39:04

I mean, Reagan was the enemy for Keith. So, he is invited to the White House. What do they know

39:10

about Keith Haring? I don't know. And it's to do a big mural for a children's hospital

39:16

and that's why he does it. And on his way out he has Tseng Kwong Chi taking a picture of him

39:23

doing this fist in the air kind of Black power salute in front of the White House.

39:28

But obviously he's conflicted. I mean, he was invited to meet George Bush,

39:32

who was the president, who was walking around, and he didn't do it. So, he had his little protest.

39:39

But at the same time, you're like saying, what are you doing, like, how do you feel about this?

39:44

[Jeff:] The growing up in the Republican household, I have to say that I was glad

39:48

to see how supportive his parents were through the whole thing. They would show up to his shows,

39:54

they would be in these environments that I have to imagine for them, were like,

39:58

I don't know any of these people, there are a lot of people. But yet they were also taken

40:01

care of by some people in the inner circle. And then were certainly there as he passed. Which

40:08

is not story you always got back in the eighties as so many parents just disowned their children.

40:14

[Brad:] Yeah. I mean, again, in favor of biographies… it takes a really great novelist

40:21

to capture inconsistencies, I think in a way. So, I understood it because I was from Pennsylvania,

40:28

Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. My parents were republicans. When I was doing this book,

40:33

I spent a lot of time in Kutztown. I got along very well with Keith's

40:36

parents and family. because I understood the whole thing.

40:39

And it was a funny… everything was don't ask,

40:43

don't tell, and not just about sexuality. Like everyone was kind of human and kind and,

40:51

but the politics was something else. They were very decent, and they loved their son. And he

41:04

tried to keep up with them. And you're right, they were there at the end. In those AIDS situations,

41:12

not every family was. And at that point it's beyond politics and they were very...

41:19

So, I hear stereotypical kind of things and Keith's family hears it… descriptions. What

41:26

was Keith's childhood like? Oh, he was in this repressive environment, evangelical Christian,

41:34

Marines and all this stuff, and you get a certain kind of cartoony image of what it was. But it

41:42

wasn't that. I mean, they were Methodists. I mean, they were… it was like they were just

41:47

a kind of small-town person that you kind of get, and they were thrown into something by their son.

41:55

And they went along with it. And they were proud. They didn't understand what was going on. They

42:01

didn't really understand the art. Also, he takes his parents to Europe at the end. I mean, so

42:07

they're in all these places with these people and like the Princess of Monaco and Gabriele Henkel,

42:17

one of the richest women in Germany and just that whole world for them to be in this sort

42:25

of Forrest Gump-ian fashion, walk through it and he's showing it to them. Just kind of interesting.

42:33

But it's also interesting that it kind of went two ways. Don't ask, don't tell. Keith had a

42:41

kind of reserve about him, and the passion came through in the work and we feel it. But then

42:48

when he took his parents to Europe, this is when he knows that he's likely to die, and then they

42:54

get back to Kennedy and they're going to go get a car or something. And Keith says, "well, now you

43:03

know how to do it yourself to go to Europe." Like the whole thing was just, he was gonna…

43:08

like he was a tour guide, and he was gonna show them, and it was obviously about more than that.

43:13

So, there was a funny way. He never said the word gay to his parents. He never said the

43:21

word AIDS to his parents, and yet everyone knew what was going on. And I had that exact

43:26

kind of experience. So, I understand how that worked. It was a moment of kind of transition

43:34

and artists could come out in their work almost more easily. than to their family.

43:40

[Jeff:] His high school experiences don't all

43:43

exactly lead you to believe that he will become the artist that he did.

43:46

[Brad:] Yeah. I mean, when you look back at them, they do because he was so single-minded

43:52

about art and it didn't change, right. But he wasn't… it wasn't a classic artist's

44:00

life. That's why I loved writing about all that stuff. I mean, he was a Jesus freak,

44:05

and he was a deadhead, and he's taking acid, and it was just a certain kind of,

44:12

again, life that I knew it didn't indicate greatness particularly, and that's why

44:18

his parents were very worried about him. I mean, he wasn't a shining light in that way.

44:22

But he was, you could see, I mean, he was putting it all together and he was

44:28

in the art room all the time, and he had his art buddy Kermit Oswald. And

44:34

then later in life he had his art buddy Kenny Scharf, his art buddy George Condo.

44:39

And he had a kind of consistent life in that way. And the through line was, I guess was,

44:45

he didn't take direction easily. So, if his seventh-grade art teacher told him "why don't

44:54

you try to draw a horse?" It didn't really work. And when he went to SVA and his painting teacher

45:01

told him, why don't you paint on canvas? He just didn't do it. I mean, he had some kind of,

45:09

I don't know where he, if he's on the spectrum or what he was, but he had… it's just his focus.

45:16

Right. And he just tunneled through. And that through line is there from the beginning.

45:23

It's the same way his actual line, I mean, his drawing line, was there from when basically his

45:30

father was encouraging him to draw certainly when he was four years old. And they're doing

45:35

drawing games together that then Keith does later with all these school kids. He has a

45:41

kind of line that you can recognize. It becomes a signature base line later on when you really,

45:50

when everything snaps together for him. But the process, you could see Keith Haring in there.

45:56

[Jeff:] I really like how his father encourages him from a very young age, but also lets him,

46:03

encourages him, but gives him room to go do whatever. And he had those couple of teachers too,

46:08

who when they figured out. It's like, well, he's not gonna do what I tell him,

46:11

but I need to let him do what he's going to do. I think those are the best teachers.

46:16

[Brad:] Yeah. I mean he really was given space and part of it then becomes his parents don't

46:23

know what to do with him. And I talked to them about that. You can just see,

46:28

and his father basically said we thought… we kind of clamped down at a certain point and

46:36

Keith's just like missing school and doing dope and they don't know about acid, but he's taking

46:43

acid in his room and drawing, and all this kind of stuff and really getting in trouble.

46:47

And they tried to clamp down on him. And the dad said,

46:51

now we know that was the wrong thing to do. You don't do that with Keith. I mean,

46:56

it just doesn't… kind of backfires. because then he just left home for a

47:00

summer as a junior in high school. So, he’s not so controllable, rebel with a cause, I guess.

47:08

But anyway, it does follow through. And also, this continues when he goes to...

47:13

Pittsburgh was a really interesting time for me to learn about and because no one really

47:18

pays much attention to it, including Keith who didn't talk about it that much. But he's really,

47:23

besides the girlfriend and then he is at a kind of commercial art school that he drops out of.

47:28

He teaches himself... he puts to together who he is as an artist, kind of on his own by going to

47:37

the Carnegie Museum of Art. He's kind of falls in love with very particular painters, Dubuffet,

47:42

Alechinsky, who were at the time were... of their influence, and Christo and all these...

47:50

the basic ideas and look of his art he puts together without any kind of outside influence.

47:57

And then comes to New York in 78 and kinda walks into and our world, it's changing in just that

48:04

way, at that time towards more expression, more color, and more public and experimental. Someone

48:15

told me I think it was Diego Cortez, who died during the course of this writing of this book,

48:20

but he was a curator who did an important P.S. New York new age show, P.S. 1 show.

48:27

Anyway, he said galleries in the seventies were like, white rooms with white people

48:32

drinking white wine. And there was this kind of minimalism and elitism that characterized

48:40

a big part of that. And Keith came in with just a completely, a different aesthetic. But

48:47

he picked up on all these other people who were on the street as well and started to match up.

48:55

[Jeff:] There's a lot of material obviously in this book, 200 some interviews,

49:00

all the stuff that you researched at the foundation. Is there anything that you

49:04

left out that you wish could have gotten in that got cut through the editorial process?

49:10

[Brad:] Well, I'm sure everyone's happy that it was probably,

49:16

although supposedly it doesn't feel that way. But it's a 500-page book. It's a solid

49:22

treatment of Keith. I think it, I would say it had to do more with the art. As I said,

49:28

there were 10,000 works of art that you want to kind of treat everything, but you also, you don't

49:37

want to just list otherwise... especially with Keith Haring, you just have a list of things,

49:42

so you kind of dive into certain works at certain moments and describe the general flow of things.

49:50

But I find that reading artist biography, I was reading the Bacon biography and I just actually

49:57

sat by my computer and googled all the paintings and things as I was reading it. So, people have

50:05

ways to enhance. And it all doesn't have to be on the page, but I would say mainly with that.

50:10

[Jeff:] You saying that makes me go, oh, I should have done that as I read this. Let me go see what

50:15

that work looks like and what that work looks like. I may have to go back and do a reread now.

50:19

[Brad:] A hot tip for you.

50:22

[Jeff:] What do you hope people take from this book? I feel like there's a lot of

50:25

things they can take from this book. What do you hope that people who dive in here,

50:31

who may come from any number of angles from it, pick up?

50:34

[Brad:] Keith's like a great... it's definitely not a how to book, but I mean,

50:39

Keith's a great life model. I mean, he is like a... there's something heroic about

50:45

him. And I think that the heroic part is just in terms of creativity. And one feels,

50:52

living in New York in the present, certain qualities have been lost

51:01

or are less available than they were, you know? And so Keith just has that.

51:08

And it wasn't like his world was so perfect. In terms of repression,

51:13

the Reagan administration was pretty brutal. And we're talking now,

51:18

we're facing the Trump administration. I mean, all this stuff. Everyone has their

51:24

own situation. But he really just like made the most out of wherever he was with whatever he had.

51:36

And I think just as an artist, when he was in Pittsburgh, he did this piece

51:42

out of Post-its. So Post-its were like a new thing. And in art school he like put

51:47

these like Post-its under steps for people to find and things. And it was just like,

51:52

whatever medium was available, whatever surface was available, he used it.

51:59

And I just think that quality of taking... he really wanted to enhance life, it seems. I mean,

52:10

he was accused of wanting to scribble over the entire world or something. because he had this

52:16

kind of... just his shows were just so intense with so much going on. But it seemed like it

52:22

was more like when he came into any situation that he wanted to like, take it up a notch.

52:27

If there's a wall, he wanted to draw on it,

52:29

or he wanted to sign somebody's clothes or he wanted to paint their body,

52:33

or he wanted to… he just kept trying to tune things up. And he, so he had a real sense of

52:43

that. I think that quality of the main character in this book, Keith Haring, is kind of terrific.

52:53

I mean, it makes you feel that you can go out and do things. And it also shows a time and a

53:00

place where people had great ambition in terms of art and life, right? So, all those artists

53:11

like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Robert Mapplethorpe, they worked all the time. I mean,

53:18

these were really hardworking people. And so, they had a great work ethic. And they're also though,

53:27

trying to have as much fun as they could have. And change... I mean gay liberation,

53:32

I mean, trying to change the way that people lived and saw each other and

53:39

all that was a lot. So, so I think it's a kind of, that part's an inspiration.

53:46

And that part was great. I mean, it was great to, to write this book because I kept getting to like,

53:51

plug into Keith Haring energy, which was a good energy to have. And I also wanted it. We were

53:58

talking about kids because I have two kids now, age five and nine with my partner. And kids relate

54:05

to Keith Haring. In their playground at school, I look around and kids are wearing Keith Haring,

54:13

t-shirts and pullovers. And across from the third-grade classroom, it's this big hallway

54:21

length piece of paper with kids who had, were learning to do art, drawing by imitating Keith

54:28

Haring drawings. I can't make that up and you can't force it. So, the way in which there's this,

54:37

how he communicated to all these different types and was so inclusive, that's a nice thing.

54:45

[Jeff:] And to realize that kids are wearing those shirts and learning to draw that way

54:50

because certainly he has endured, I mean, we're 40-ish years on from his death. He's a Funko Pop.

55:00

You can get his art on all manner of clothes from all manner of places. It's like these drawings

55:09

and his legacy, again, have endured all this time, which is what as an artist you hope for,

55:14

but certainly not everybody from his era necessarily got it either.

55:19

[Brad:] No. I mean, one thing that happened, which you can't force is a younger generation. I'm thinking of, Kaws, Banksy, Shepard Fairey,

55:30

for whom Keith is this kind of role model in the way Andy Warhol was for Keith and

55:34

Kenny Scharf. And so that, that is really helping keep him alive and also his aesthetic.

55:42

And he got, you're talking about all these T-shirts and things. This is licensing and

55:47

Keith got into so much flack, when he was alive, when he opened the Pop Shop for crossing these two

55:55

wires of high art and commerce. No other artists at the time opened a store and Keith, he opened

56:02

a store because the store was a work of art in itself, and he was making available T-shirts,

56:09

which were actually prints, at price points that would be accessible to everyone. And this

56:16

got into a lot of trouble. This concept is not so shocking to us now. And artists finding all kinds

56:24

of things with Andy Warhol images or Basquiat images. All of that has been kind of erased.

56:31

At the end of the book, I talked to Ann Temkin, who's the chief curator of painting

56:37

and sculpture of MoMA. And she was talking about this. First of all, she was kind of

56:42

apologizing to me for the institution because MoMA never showed Keith when he was alive,

56:47

never bought a work of art. And they have one great 30-foot-long drawing that they brought

56:53

out for the reopening of the museum a couple years ago that the foundation gave to them.

56:58

And she was saying part of this is that at that time there was just this distinction between

57:04

high art and commercialism and the two could not cross over. And then also seriousness. I mean,

57:12

art was like a serious, almost like an insider game. You had to kind of know what was going

57:19

on to get it. And Keith didn't, at least on the surface, didn't seem to have that at all. I mean,

57:25

he was, like you very legible in that way. So, a lot of things were working against him.

57:30

She also said though, that she thought with certain kinds of radical art,

57:34

it takes about 30 years for the art, for people to be able to see it for what it is.

57:41

She said that happened like with the Water Lilies, Monet's Water Lilies. It happened

57:46

with the AbEx painters. There was like an alarm clock went off. And she thought that

57:50

Keith's at about that 30-year mark where you start doing a kind of double take when

57:55

you see the work and you see it on a wall in a museum and it makes a lot of sense there.

58:00

[Jeff:] And even, as we're recording this in February, down in Southern California right now,

58:06

Luna Luna is down there for the first time in decades that it's,

58:10

that theme park has all been reassembled with art from Keith Haring and some other

58:15

contemporaries of the time. And it's a big hit that we can all

58:20

go see this art again and this interesting interpretation of the art being a theme park.

58:26

[Brad:] I mean, you should go because I'm supposed to do something there at some point,

58:30

I think in March. And I went, I spoke at The Broad with Bill T. Jones last year. They had a big show.

58:35

I went with Bill T. Jones and Jean-Michel Basquiat's sister graciously allowed us

58:40

to come along and we went and saw that. And it is amazing. I mean, to see carousel that Keith made,

58:48

and the Ferris wheel that Jean-Michel made, and just the idea of it. And again,

58:53

it's something that, that now makes a lot of sense right. I know. I think Drake is who paid

59:00

for this to happen, and I was thinking about, it will eventually move outside

59:05

and then there'll be young artists who make rides. You can actually go on, like that too.

59:10

And you have like an artist thing, and Keith always wanted to do a playground. That was

59:15

one of the things that he didn't really get to complete. So, this the idea of artists

59:20

making amusement parks and playgrounds. And so, all this is a really big statement,

59:26

I think about art. And Keith was very important in allowing big statements.

59:31

[Jeff:] You've written about such diverse people. We talked about Flannery O'Connor.

59:36

We talked a little bit about Frank O'Hara. You've written about the poet Rumi. You've

59:40

talked about relationships and spirituality through your work.

59:45

What's the connecting thread through all of that for you, within your body of work?

59:49

[Brad:] Me, but I... Well, people ask, especially in terms of biography,

59:57

ask me that question. I mean, and to me, these four figures all make sense together. I actually

1:00:03

think of them as like saints lives, if you ask me how I really think of them. And so, there

1:00:07

are these like people who all just were these great artists who did something that was kind

1:00:16

of larger than life and while it was happening wasn't so clear that this was gonna work.

1:00:24

And so, I think that in a way is what draws me, not saints, like moral,

1:00:30

virtuous people but just like trying to do something that someone else isn't doing or

1:00:37

isn't doing on the scale that they are. So, I never had this idea of biography,

1:00:42

or I wasn't… I haven't been drawn like to figures who I don't like, and then I'm gonna expose and

1:00:48

you have to live with them, and you learn to hate them and all of that stuff. I mean, there

1:00:52

are always moments in the life of your figures, I guess, that are imperfect or something like that,

1:01:00

but that's not what I'm going for. So, I think that's the through line that I see.

1:01:06

[Jeff:] We do love to get recommendations on this show, and I'd love to know what

1:01:10

you might be reading or watching right now that our listeners should check out.

1:01:14

[Brad:] One is Michael Cunningham's novel "Day." I don't know if you've read that,

1:01:20

but it's, very... It's so beautiful and it's like his early work to me. And so that was

1:01:27

just kind of fantastic and this dispareness and poeticness of it. All that's beautiful.

1:01:34

I just read a book that's coming out next month, Cynthia Carr's "Candy Darling,"

1:01:40

which is a biography of Candy Darling, which at this moment is really interesting because

1:01:45

we have this whole trans movement and then you have Candy Darling at that moment being

1:01:51

the Warhol version of that and being kind of vamping 2D campy character. But living

1:01:59

24/7 pretty much as a woman. So, you get something new by thinking about

1:02:07

Candy Darling at this moment. Not just the Celluloid Warhol silver thing but also what

1:02:14

was going on in terms of her own issues of gender and how she was working all that out.

1:02:21

And I'm looking forward to reading Lucy Sante's book. "I Heard Her Call My Name,"

1:02:25

which is about former Luke Sante has become Lucy Sante and has gone through her own kind

1:02:30

of transformation. So that's a memoir. All those things I've been reading or wanting to read.

1:02:37

In terms of like looking at things, one is this great. "Merrily We Roll Along," Stephen

1:02:43

Sondheim's first musical. I'm like a huge Stephen Sondheim person. So don't get me started on him

1:02:52

as like early Shakespeare. But the "Merrily We Roll Along," on Broadway's fantastic show,

1:02:59

which had opened and closed after 16 performances when it was first done.

1:03:04

And I don't know if you know it, but it goes backwards in time. And so, you get something,

1:03:10

not just that, that he pulls off, but then you have the same kind of songs that are that kind

1:03:16

of repeat every so often, but they have a different meaning because they're from a

1:03:21

different time. I mean, it all was really like a special kind of night in that way.

1:03:28

And "Fellow Travelers," I don't know if you've seen that.

1:03:33

[Jeff:] I binged that. That was amazing.

1:03:35

[Brad:] Amazing, right? Because you really, as much as you knew about the McCarthy era,

1:03:42

but also Joe McCarthy and gay Roy Cohn and gay,

1:03:45

everybody. But then when you really saw how those lives were lived.

1:03:51

It's nice to get to the, to 1978 when people were

1:03:57

finally starting to… Keith Haring's generation were starting to come out.

1:04:02

I also went to the Madonna's Celebration concert and there I saw my life flash in front of my eyes.

1:04:11

I mean, one part of it is this nostalgia really of that time that we're also talking about here,

1:04:18

or something even greater than nostalgia perhaps. But there's a moment in it when she's,

1:04:23

talking about Martin Burgoyne, her friend who died of ADIS, who's also a character in my book seen

1:04:30

from Keith's point of view. And this five-story high like kind of poster of Keith Haring comes

1:04:37

down while she's singing. And then this five-story high poster of Howard Brookner, who I wrote "Smash

1:04:42

Cut" about, comes down behind it. And I had a kind of this actual shock from that. So,

1:04:52

and that was very personal. But it's interesting the looking I think to that period. I mean,

1:05:01

Madonna's looking at that time and she's trying to keep it alive and she's trying to

1:05:07

pay tribute to those people. And I'm trying in some way in this book to do that also.

1:05:15

[Jeff:] It is interesting you brought up "Fellow Travelers" because I was watching

1:05:19

that show while I was reading your book. I've just read Armistead Maupin's latest

1:05:24

installment in "Tales of the City," and all of these things kind of lock

1:05:31

together in their own way because "Fellow Travelers" crosses into the

1:05:34

timeframe. Keith Haring's not in that at all, but it crosses into that timeframe.

1:05:39

[Brad:] Right. [Jeff:] Certainly, talking about Madonna and her latest tour,

1:05:43

which is all about nostalgia feeds into that. I got to thinking about having seen

1:05:49

"Angels in America" a few times and how all that kind of connects and builds. It's an

1:05:56

amazing body of work that now exists around that timeframe, which "Radiant" connects right into.

1:06:03

[Brad:] And also, the activism, I mean, in each of those cases, I think everyone was… all of

1:06:11

this is rough. I mean, the McCarthy period was rough, and the Reagan years were rough,

1:06:17

and the denial that AIDS was going on and that this actually cost lives. No, this is rough.

1:06:24

And we have a lot of rough things going on again. But there was Madonna and Keith Haring were giving

1:06:33

voice to a lot of things that inspired young women, inspired gays, and that was very important.

1:06:42

Checking in on history at this moment and seeing it as a mirror now in which we see ourselves and

1:06:48

things are finally history. I mean, that's its own moment. I mean, it takes 30 years,

1:06:53

I guess, for a work of art to make sense. And it takes 30 years for history to make sense,

1:06:58

I think, in our own stories and what happened. So that seems to be a little bit where we're at.

1:07:04

[Jeff:] What is the best way for people to keep up with you? What's going on with the

1:07:09

tour and the promotion you're gonna be doing around "Radiant" and everything?

1:07:12

[Brad:] I have BradGooch.com, author's site, so I'm gonna put up my tour dates and things. And

1:07:19

so that's the main updating place. And I'm on Instagram and Facebook and findable that way,

1:07:26

so, so we're in a big communicating society right now, so it's easy. Maybe too easy.

1:07:32

[Jeff:] Maybe too easy. [Brad:] But I'm doing It.

1:07:36

[Jeff:] Brad, thank you so much for this wonderful conversation.

1:07:39

I'm so glad we got to have it. And I wish you all the success

1:07:42

with "Radiant" and showing everybody more about the amazing Keith Haring.

1:07:48

[Brad:] Thank you. I mean, this was legitimately fun talking to you. Thanks.

1:07:53

[Will:] This episode's transcript has been brought to you by our community on

1:07:57

Patreon. If you'd like to read the conversation for yourself,

1:08:00

head on over to the show notes page for this episode at BigGayFictionPodcast.com.

1:08:04

We've got links to everything that we've talked about in this episode.

1:08:08

[Jeff:] Thanks so much to Brad for taking the time to come talk to us about "Radiant." I hope

1:08:12

you enjoyed listening to the conversation as much as I did having it. And even more, I hope you'll

1:08:18

pick up "Radiant" and dive into the world of Keith Haring, his art, his creative drive,

1:08:23

and the history of the time that he lived and worked in. It's certainly a book that I think

1:08:27

you'll see on my favorites list at the end of the year because of how much it resonated with me.

1:08:32

[Will:] All right. I think that'll do it for now. Coming up next on Monday, March 25th,

1:08:36

we're going to hear all about "The Boyfriend Subscription" from its author, Steven Salvatore.

1:08:41

[Jeff:] There's a trend happening right now of authors from the young adult genre coming out

1:08:45

with their first adult romances. Remember, we talked to Kacen Callender about that earlier

1:08:50

this year already, and now Steven is on that list with this wonderful fake dating romance.

1:08:54

[Will:] [Jeff:] and I, we want to thank you so much for listening and hope that you'll

1:08:58

join us again soon for more discussions about the kinds of stories we all love,

1:09:02

the big gay fiction kind. Until then, keep turning those pages and keep reading.

1:09:08

Big Gay Fiction Podcast is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more shows

1:09:12

you’ll love at frolic.media/podcasts. Original theme music by Daryl Banner.