Out comedian Bob Smith (as I remember, the first “mainstream gay comedian”) has penned his first novel, Selfish and Perverse (Carroll & Graf) and in it, one immediately recognizes his comic voice: “For the past six months … I hadn't written a word … It made me wonder how writers procrastinated in the Homeric era. Did bards of yore talk endlessly about their plans to someday tell a story?” Or “I hated when my job interfered with my real vocation: getting a boyfriend.” Finally, “My passage from childhood to adulthood was simply realizing a security blanket worked better with two people snuggling under it.”

This is funny stuff and the best line is one I can't repeat here. In fact, while reading, I folded down the corners of the pages with funny parts to read them out loud later to my boyfriend and found that I had creased nearly the entire book!

But don't be misled into thinking the book is nothing but one-liners. Selfish and Perverse (the title is taken from a quote by Beethoven that “true art is selfish and perverse”) is a great big love story, too.

Thirty-four-year-old writer Nelson Kunker is fired from his job as a Hollywood script assistant and rescued from the La Brea Tar Pits on national television. Looking for a fresh start, he travels to Alaska to visit a new beau, Roy Briggs, a handsome archaeologist and part-time salmon fisherman. Not only is this a love story between two gay men, it is also a paean of love between the protagonist and his newly found state of choice, Alaska.

Dylan, an A-list Hollywood actor who met Roy in Los Angeles, suddenly appears in the same Alaskan town to do research for his next movie role. Dylan takes himself very seriously as an actor, so he wants to live the life of a salmon fisherman by accompanying Roy on a fishing trip. The very handsome Dylan is also an ex-con, an ex-druggie and a practicing sex addict. And, not surprisingly, he wreaks havoc with Roy and Nelson's love life.

Dylan is intent on getting Nelson into bed, even though Nelson already has a boyfriend in Roy. Despite that, Nelson finds it hard to ignore the Hollywood heartthrob with his handsome, stubbled face, gym-toned arms and chest, artfully unkempt blond hair and overt, constant touching. Of course, complications ensue. Can Nelson endure his stay in Alaska? What's up with the hunky movie star? Will Roy and Nelson sustain their romance?

The Alaskan wilderness, breathtaking in its natural beauty and exotic in its uniqueness, makes for an interesting – and refreshing – setting for a gay novel. When was the last time you read about a nagoon berry or an oostic (a whale penis)? But an unusual venue is not all that sets this book apart: it is the intelligence with which the story unfolds. One realizes as the plot moves along from one comic moment to the next that the author has an impressively broad knowledge of the world and human nature.

Smith's characters are layered and complex. Roy has a quiet, dark side such that Nelson doesn't always know where he stands with his new love-interest. Dylan is well-read and sometimes even insightful while Nelson is a kind of everyman (though probably better looking than most), but is also endearingly honest, insecure and full of one-liners.

In a possible act of authorial self-revelation, Nelson explain to Dylan, “I think my being funny is mostly about entertaining myself. It's a way of having fun or avoiding thinking about something sad or depressing or hopeless.”

Tangential characters — such as Dee, Roy's independent mother, Alex, the Native performance artist, and Wendy, Nelson's loudmouth lesbian friend — are all fully-formed characters as well.

But ultimately this is Nelson's story and we see him develop from a procrastinating writer-wannabe to someone with a firm grasp on life and the passion to create something real with his writing talent. Smith's novel is one of the strongest books I have read recently and is what I would consider a keeper — a book that I would want to keep on the shelf for re-reading, even though every other page is bent over to mark where I found chuckles.