If you are looking for the perfect beach book for this summer, gay novelist Steve Kluger might have just what you need. A winner in the Romance category, at the 17th annual Lambda Literary Awards held in new York on June 2, 2005, Almost Like Being In Love, Kluger’s third novel, is basically the story of Travis and Craig, an unlikely male couple who, despite the odds, fall in love during senior year of high school, and then, sadly, go their separate ways in college. Twenty years later, single Travis wants to reconnect with the partnered Craig, and via a series of memos, letters, e-mails and other forms of communication, this funny and touching story unfolds into a delightful read.

AE: What are the challenges involved in writing a book in this form?
SK: I’ll tell you something, Gregg, it’s exactly the opposite. The challenges to me are writing a book in straight, linear narrative. Because you’ve got to keep every line popping. With something like this, it’s just a question of figuring out, up front, figuring out what narrative devices you are going to use for each individual relationship and then sticking to it, as you need to cut back and forth. It’s more a cinematic style than anything else. Years of writing unsold screenplays got me schooled in that. If they’re not going to buy it in Hollywood, you may as well figure out a way to translate it and make it work.

AE: What is the significance of beginning the book in 1978?
SK: That’s a really good question. I guess it was a backwards twist from where I started. The book begins in 1998 and I wanted there to be a twenty year difference. As it turns out, 1978 worked out great for me in terms of certain cultural touchstones that these kids latched onto because there were certain elements about that year that were going on politically that ultimately fed into their relationship and fed into them as they were growing up. It was the perfect year for that.

AE: One of the things from 1978 was the movie I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and I thought that I was the only gay man who connected to that film when it was released. What is your connection to that movie?
SK: (Laughs) First of all, it was one of my favorite movies of all time. To this day, it remains one of my favorites. Don’t ask me why. When it came out, I must have seen it three times in the first two days of release because I couldn’t get enough of it. I became a Bobby DiCicco (Tommy Smerko in the movie) fan immediately. My three brothers all had the same response when they saw it. When I was writing the book, I had to have something for these two kids to bond over that is unique enough to make it something singular.

It struck me that if these two kids bonded over Bobby DiCicco in I Want To Hold Your Hand, there’s no other two kids who are going to do that. Ancillary to all of this is that after seeing that movie, I was the biggest Bobby DiCicco fan in the world. It’s now twenty-six years later and Bobby is my best friend. I mailed him the first chapter of the book, when it was done, with a note that said, “I never ever show a work progress, but you’ll understand why I’ve got to make an exception in this case.” He called me and said, “Man, you’re out of your fucking mind!” It’s such a perfect full-cycle. A few years after I saw the movie, I wrote my first play and I had him in mind for the showiest part. Cut to a few years later and he’s playing the part. I was a fan and he was a star and it ultimately evolved (into a friendship).

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