Book Reviews: What Would Happen if a Man Went Back in Time to Keep George W. Bush from Becoming President?

It's a writing cliche, but it's sadly often very true: an author's debut novel is often much better than his or her follow-up. There are lots of reasons for this: the author spends years honing and revising that first novel, which is often based on the most dramatic and engaging idea the writer has ever had.

Meanwhile, the second novel, which is usually written "on contract," is often rushed to capitalize on the success of the debut — and, let's face it, a lot of writers don't work well under pressure, or have a second truly interesting story to tell.

I'm happy to report that one author has dramatically upended this writing cliche. I liked Selfish and Perverse, the first novel of comedian Bob Smith, who was the first out comedian to appear on The Tonight Snow (back in the 1980s), and who has also written nonfiction in the past, including the Lambda Award-winning Openly Bob.

But Remembrance of Things I Forgot (University of Wisconsin Press, $26.95 hardcover, $14.95 ebook) is quite simply one of the best gay comic novels I've read in years.

It's partly because the story is so wonderfully audacious: in 2006, a man named John decides to break up with his longtime boyfriend-turned-Republican on the same day that that boyfriend reveals that he's invented a time machine. Through a freak accident, John travels back in time to 1986, encountering his former self as well as his boyfriend's former self.

John has a chance to set things right: he can make sure his boyfriend never turns into a Republican by stopping George W. Bush from ever becoming president (and preventing 9/11, which is what causes the boyfriend's political transformation). How? Get Bush drunk and take incriminating sexual photos. Along the way, John can also try to prevent the tragedies that will also strike his father and sister.

On one hand, this is all just an excuse to do a hilarious (and righteously furious) riff on the vicious, cynical, brain-dead politics of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Republicans in general. And it's very, very funny (and extremely satisfying if you share Smith's politics). And lest you think that Smith doesn't have the nerve to include George W. and Dick Cheney (both younger and older) as actual characters, he does -- and the result feels spot-on, slightly exaggerated for comic effect, but "truthful" in fundamental ways.

And I repeat: the book is laugh-out-loud funny. When John tries to talk his African American lesbian friend into sleeping with George W. by pointing out all the horrible things the man will do to the country and the world, she says, "Great. You're making me feel like Rosa Parks -- only I'm letting someone sit on my face."

When John starts to get into squabbles with his younger self, he wryly points out, "The whole idea of goodwill among men nose-dives when you can't even get along with yourself."

But Smith wisely didn't leave the book at a clever central idea and lots of witty one-liners. It's also a surprisingly solid, satisfying story of an interesting character — caustic and bitter, but not an a**hole — who is quickly caught up in events he can't control, even if he thinks he can.

The book is also a fairly plotted time-travel yarn — which is really saying something, since this is a genre that's notorious for authors who cheat. Better still, nothing turns out exactly like you expect.

Remembrance of Things I Forgot is a winner on all counts.

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I wasn't familiar with the 1997 graphic novel Horror Hospital Unplugged by Dennis Cooper (the novelist author of Frisk and Closer) and artist Keith Mayerson (Harper Perennial, $24.99), which is now out in a new edition.

It tells the impressionistic story of Trevor Machine, the twinky, gay-ish teenage front man for a rising indie band called Horror Hospital.

The art, which frequently changes styles, is seriously trippy. Meanwhile, the story goes off on some serious flights of fancy. If you require any sort of linear plot or coherent storyline, this isn't the work for you; I suspect that, at times, it will try the patience of all who take it on.

But it's also difficult to deny that there isn't some kind of genius at work in this (dated) pop culture stew that seems to have poured directly from the unconscious minds of the writer and artist involved.

When the characters attend a party thrown by David Geffen, for example, it's both breathtakingly brutal satire and genuinely disturbing.

In short, the whole thing is a serious descent into madness -- and not just the happy, safe-ish Alice in Wonderland kind. But I can't say it's not a descent worth taking.

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Leslea Newman is the author of one of the most controversial books of the last twenty years, the picture book Heather Has Two Mommies, which has long been a conservative whipping boy. Now she's back with a new book (with artist Mike Dutton), Donovan's Big Day (Tricycle Press, $15.99).

This picture book (for ages 4 to 7) tells the story of a young boy getting ready for an important event. It turns out to be — spoiler alert! — the wedding of his lesbian mothers, for whom Donovan is entrusted to carry the ring.

The pictures are fine, and I liked the book's strongly positive, gay-affirming vibe. And it's certainly well-intentioned, although I confess that I found it hard to believe that kids would be all that engaged by the story itself, because Donovan is an almost completely passive main character, with no obstacles to overcome and no real choices to make. He just ... gets ready and shows up at the wedding with the ring. I suspect the rules of basic storytelling still apply even in a 27-page picture book aimed at small kids.

Still, this might be a good way to introduce a child to the concept of a same-sex wedding.

ALSO IN STORES NOW

Everywhere you turn these days, it seems like someone is doing a benefit for the Trevor Project, but add to all of them a new young adult anthology, Awake (Cheyenne Publishing, $12.99 paperback, $5.99 ebook), with four stories by noted gay teen authors such as Nancy Garden (the author of the 1980s lesbian classic Annie on my Mind), Brian Katcher (Almost Perfect), and Robin Reardon (A Question of Manhood).

Why do gay men have higher rates of substance abuse than straight folks -- and how does successful treatment tend to be different? Gay Men and Substance Abuse by Michael Shelton (Hazelden, $14.95) is exactly what it sounds like: an in-depth look at this thorny, complicated issue.