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AE: Do you think you’re also successful as a writer because of being an openly gay man?
CR: Yes, absolutely. 200 people came to my book signing in New York. A lot of them didn’t buy the book and a lot of them won’t. I’m in the public eye in the gay community. The Advocate column has a lot to do with it. Not the entire crowd was gay, but a lot of them were.

AE: What’s been the hardest obstacle for you?
CR: The fact of the matter is I’ve had it very easy. I didn’t expect it to play out as it did. I didn’t expect the first book to get as much attention as it did. I didn’t expect to be on the cover of The Advocate. I thought it would be a small gay book that would give me something to talk about in pitch meetings. I wanted to be a screenwriter only. I had a disdainful, dismissive attitude toward books as being inferior.

AE: That’s interesting considering your mother’s profession.
CR: That’s what was really behind it too. That fear didn’t go away until after the second book. That’s when I felt I could earn my own stripes.

AE: Do you face a lot of homophobia?
CR: It’s not an issue. And, I’m also in the most heterosexual corner of the publishing industry which is crime fiction. I’m not alone. There are a couple others. There’s Val McDermott, a famous lesbian writer. There’s a few. Only recently have I seen a focus on gay crime fiction. But, no I haven’t felt any homophobia. But you never know. I sent Light Before Day to other straight writers to get a blurb. A friend of mine told me to be careful. A lot of them won’t do it because it’s gay. They don’t want their readers to be affiliated with gay fiction.

AE: When did you come out?
CR: I came out when I was 18. It was uneventful. I was the one with the biggest problem with it. Nobody else had a big issue with it.

AE: How did it happen?
CR: I started going to gay bars when I turned 18 but I was still a senior in high school. I met a boy there and we started going out secretly. My family went on this big vacation to Italy. I told them I wanted to go home early and be with my boyfriend. They didn’t know I had a boyfriend. They said “That’s nice, but you’re not going home.” That was that. Mom didn’t believe it. She didn’t fight it either. She was waiting to see if it was real. I was a child of big pronouncements and proclamations. And I had dated a lot of women. I used to say “How could they not tell? I was the sensitive theatre kid.” But the truth is, I did a good job of putting on the airs of a straight guy when I needed to. A sensitive artistic straight guy.

AE: How’s mom now?
CR: Completely fine.

AE: How long have you been in West Hollywood and what are your thoughts?
CR: Five years. The community here has a lot of great material. I got a lot of material for Light Before Day just by being gay and out in West Hollywood. I ran across a lot of unsavory characters. I get very speculative with people. There’s no autobiography. The characters become composites of people I meet. Nobody has come after me because of Light Before Day but that may be because nobody in West Hollywood reads.

AE: So, you go out to the clubs now?
CR: I tend to go for a personal reason and come back with material. Now that I’m single again, I’ve started going to the clubs. I don’t really want to be there, but I feel like I need to be, so I end up looking for material.

AE: What do you think is the biggest problem facing gay men these days?
CR: I think that I get so upset on the Crystal Meth epidemic that I’m reaching a point of fatigue. Crystal meth plays a huge role in Light Before Day. It’s been linked to gay men having 18 sex partners a night and contracting HIV. Larry Kramer made a huge speech about it at Cooper Union saying it was the tragedy of today’s gays. I don’t have the answer and can’t save the world, but it’s a horrible epidemic. There’s a lot misconceptions about the reality of it though. There’s this belief that there’s an age divide. That it’s only young gay guys doing it. But that’s not true. And I am concerned about that in general on a whole host of issues. There seems to be a very false dichotomy of younger gay men versus older gay men. I see just as self destructive behavior in older gay men too. To blame all the gay community problems on reckless kids is not true. That’s my issue and I write about it a lot. Self-destructive behavior. What’s the point of gay marriage if we’re all doing crystal?

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