0:04

Gays reading where the greats drop by trendy authors. Tell us all the who, what and why. Anyone can listen Comes we are spoiler free. Reading from stars to book club picks we're the curious minds can get their picks. Say you're not gay. Well that's okay there something everyone. Hello and welcome to Gays reading. I'm your host, Jason Blitman. And on today's episode I have Sean Hewitt who wrote the book Open Heaven, which is out today, and my guest, gay reader is Jeffrey Self. His book Self-Sabotage is also, I. Out as well. Both of their bios are in the show notes. If you are in the LA area this Friday I'm going to be in person with Sean talking about open heaven at Book soup, and then next week I'm at the LA Times Festival of Books moderating a panel. So if you happen to be around, please say hello, uh, or there are certainly other places you could check out some of that content as well. Speaking of additional content, I just started a gaze reading Substack with author q and As and live recordings of conversations and some other exciting stuff. You could check that out. The link is in the show notes and also on the Instagram link tree. On Instagram. We are Gaze Reading or also on Blue Sky. And if you like what you're hearing, please share us with your friends. It means so much to this little indie podcast to just get a little bit of traction If you. Like, and follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And if you are so inclined to leave a five star review, that certainly means a lot. And there's so much stuff coming up that I recommend you subscribe so that, uh, you'll be the first to know when a new episode drops For those of you who have not been paying attention, I'm partnering with Aardvark Book Club to provide an exclusive introductory discount. New members in the United States can join today and enter the code Gaze reading at checkout, and get their first book for$4 plus free shipping. So aardvark book club.com. Use the code Gaze Reading and you get a book for$4. It is like truly the best deal. So make sure to check that out as well. Please enjoy my conversations with Sean Hewitt and Jeffrey Self.

Jason Blitman: 2:31

I love your office or what, whatever room you're in.

Seán Hewitt: 2:33

thank you. Yeah, I'm in, So I teach at Trinity College in Dublin, and this is Oscar Wilde's house. So,

Jason Blitman: 2:42

Up.

Seán Hewitt: 2:43

yeah, so I'm in the attic. So this is, it doesn't look like it used to be Oscar Wild's house, but it was he was

Jason Blitman: 2:49

That is so cool. Of course, Oscar Wilde is on the Gays reading artwork

Seán Hewitt: 2:55

great. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. I saw it.

Jason Blitman: 2:59

that, so you're like, the spirit of Oscar is with us today.

Seán Hewitt: 3:04

Yeah. If there was a portrait in the attic, it would be me at this point. I I live up in the attic and there's a big old building with many and no lift.

Jason Blitman: 3:15

Oh, how no lift. Oh, geez.

Seán Hewitt: 3:17

I'm up six flights of stairs every day down. So it keeps me healthy.

Jason Blitman: 3:22

I know we just met, and this is probably inappropriate to say, but what I'm hearing is that you have a nice butt.

Seán Hewitt: 3:28

yeah, Yeah, it keeps me tired.

Jason Blitman: 3:35

Welcome to Gay's reading. I am so excited to talk to you about Open Heaven.

Seán Hewitt: 3:42

I have one here. It's a.

Jason Blitman: 3:46

It's a great, yeah. You need to get like a print of this for your office or something.

Seán Hewitt: 3:51

I do. I have many secrets about this cover as well. Do you want an exclusive?

Jason Blitman: 3:55

Of course.

Seán Hewitt: 3:56

Sarah, who designed the cover, who I haven't spoken to, but I assume so the book is set in a village, Which is very like a village I know, which is like where I grew up. And when Sarah sent me this, I see the pink pl, it's exact shape of the outline of the county that I live in or that I lived in. And I have to just assume that Sarah knew that because it's the exact outline of Cheshire.

Jason Blitman: 4:29

That's very cool. It looks like a, just a, like an ink blot.

Seán Hewitt: 4:34

yeah, that's the sort of research she put in there.

Jason Blitman: 4:37

Wow. That is such a good Easter egg. Have you worked your elevator pitch yet? For open heaven. All right. Now is your t.

Seán Hewitt: 4:44

Two boys, one year. Four seasons. Small village. One straight. One Gay. Gay. One falls in love with the other. One. Torture and romance in used.

Jason Blitman: 5:02

yeah. I don't even know that you would need to say sexualities

Seán Hewitt: 5:08

No.

Jason Blitman: 5:09

conceptually.'cause I, what I love so much about the book is that there is this like love,

Seán Hewitt: 5:14

Yes. And know what I wanted to do with the book was produced. So inside, so the main character is called James. I wanted you to be so inside his head that you also weren't sure about the nature of the relationship.'cause I think, I don't know if like me, you. Like terrible when in love. you know, When you fall in love or even if you have a crush on someone and you're just constantly looking for signs from them did they mean to just touch my arm like that? Or was that just an accident or are they sending me a secret Message? So I wanted to put you like right inside his head as he's trying to decode it and maybe you can't tell what's fantasy and what's reality as you go.

Jason Blitman: 5:56

that is very true. I would co-sign. That is true. Because you brought that up, we could probably talk for an entire hour about what, being in love, what being infatuated with, what having such deep emotions make us do, make us feel, make us suffer through. Do you have any examples of I don't wanna say, do you have examples of how crazy you were when you've been in love? But I guess that's maybe sort of what I'm asking.

Seán Hewitt: 6:23

I mean, I have many, none of which are like anything less than mortified.

Jason Blitman: 6:28

I'll happily share one of mine too. So you're not, you don't feel alone.

Seán Hewitt: 6:32

I just used to do this thing where I remember going to the cinema with a guy who I was like, obsessed with when I was maybe about 16 or 17. And he, and we went with one of my friends who was a girl. And obviously that this whole thing was entirely in my head. Halfway through the film they started kissing. I stand up, I lead the cinema in tears. I don't tell them where I'm going. I get the bus all the way home and I don't speak to them for a week. And, but neither of them knew why. I just ran away. And obviously from the outside that looks completely deranged. But I think at that point, like it was also in my head that I thought it was real. Like I was just convinced that it was about to happen and it was met with this, obvious evidence, sitting next to me kissing that it was all in my head. I had this, snapped. But there's many more things, but yeah.

Jason Blitman: 7:25

I think that's such a good example because I have learned through years of my own therapy that so much of my anxiety comes from expectations.

Seán Hewitt: 7:35

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 7:36

And so you had this fantasy in your head, and I think the term fantasy is very interesting in and of itself because it fantasies aren't necessarily fantastical or untrue.

Seán Hewitt: 7:50

That's the hard thing sometimes. So sometimes they happen. So how are.

Jason Blitman: 7:54

Exactly. I, so to, I, I said I would share to make you not feel alone, so I'm happy, but I was older than you, so this is even more embarrassing. So I was in college and it was like Thanksgiving one year and a friend's friend was in from out of town, and he came over to my apartment with her and he and I had exactly what you described, the are the looks. The thing that I think they are, are the random touches, the things that I think they are. And then sure enough, he got my number from our mutual friend reached out to me and saw me the next day. And we had this weekend long sort of love affair. It was the beginning, the middle, and the end of a relationship in two days. And I mean to the point where this, he was visiting in the town where he grew up. So he brought me to his childhood home and he was like, oh, I'm so excited to kiss you in my childhood bedroom and oh, let's go do this thing and let's walk my dog together and I'll bring you back to your apartment and we'll have fun and yada yada yada. So then the weekend is done and he's going back to school and I was like, maybe we could try long distance or whatever. And he was like no, that's

Seán Hewitt: 9:03

That was it.

Jason Blitman: 9:05

right. That was it. It was this weekend thing and I was devastated and I went a little crazy.

Seán Hewitt: 9:12

But I, I think what I think about, when you really, first off, that sounds like a film and two it's also when you have that like intense thing and it seems like that guy had an intense thing for you or else why would he be bringing you to his childhood home?

Jason Blitman: 9:27

Yeah, no, it was very strange.

Seán Hewitt: 9:30

But I think when you have this intense, like day or two, we've all had those like dates that kind of, then you go to another bar and then you're it's oh, should we do this?'cause you don't wanna leave. And it feels like time just expands. But you also, it is amazing how much you can invest in an idea in such a short space of time. It sounds crazy from the outside until you've been there.

Jason Blitman: 9:54

Mm-hmm.

Seán Hewitt: 9:54

I don't think that's a crazy thing at all. I have done the exact same thing, so we're not crazy, right?

Jason Blitman: 10:00

No, we're not crazy. We're not crazy together. What are you doing tomorrow night? Do you want to go out for dinner?

Seán Hewitt: 10:05

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 10:07

You said time expands and the first line of the book is time runs faster backwards. I based, you literally just said, time expands. So many of the chapters in the book start with phrases that are very temporal and time related. What is your relationship with time?

Seán Hewitt: 10:29

I wrote that first section of the book, so the, like the prologue part of the book a little bit later. I actually remember where I was. I was in Providence, Rhode Island in Ka.

Jason Blitman: 10:39

Oh.

Seán Hewitt: 10:39

All places. And I was thinking about, one of the weird things is that being alive is, you have to live forward and you're entirely unprepared for what's coming because everything is new. But looking backwards is the only way that you can understand things that have happened and put them into a context like you are not really able to do that as you are living day to day. There is not the process and power to, to put things in. I wondered about the unevenness of our life. Like the past is so much bigger and heavier than the future sometimes, and we can find ourselves being pulled backwards into this orbit of things that have context, that kind of, we process all the time. We think about all the time and the future is this kind of airy, possibility. And I don't know. I think about that a lot and I also think I tend to, no, probably everyone does, right? We live most of our lives in the idea of the past. I think we're like generally maybe a survival mechanism or something,

Jason Blitman: 11:41

Partly survival. I think because we learn from our past we are able to survive, not burning our hand on the stove because we remember what happened when we touched it the first time. You talking about the past, being bigger and heavier is interesting because there is something about getting stronger as we move forward and giving us the strength to carry the heavy past.

Seán Hewitt: 12:09

Yeah. Yeah. And I think sometimes, the, sometimes the heavy pass is book. And it is, it's weighing down on you. And I think in this book, I wanted to start it in, it starts in 2022 and then goes back in time. Because there's still I think there's multiple things that's still dragging down on this character that he needs to sort out. So I had this vision of a rewinding And going back in time and almost like trying to isolate the point at which he becomes himself. And whether that can be undone or not.

Jason Blitman: 12:44

Some of how you do that in the book involves sense memory. James goes back to this town, he. Goes to the farm where these kindling of these feelings began and he smells the farm. And I did a little bit of research on s sense memories because I find them so impactful and I never really thought to look into why. And apparently the olfactory system in the brain is connected to our emotion center and our hippocampus, which is our memory center, and senses evoke strong emotional memories instantly because they bypass the normal processes. And so like you literally can smell something and immediately be transported back to a moment because of the direct link to the memory.

Seán Hewitt: 13:41

that's happened to me a couple of years ago, so this is either embarrassing or not, I dunno. But

Jason Blitman: 13:47

Nothing's embarrassing on gay's reading.

Seán Hewitt: 13:49

my, my boyfriend's mom was, so her next door neighbor used to work in like a department store and they had this thing where they, when they have like perfume test, But they throw them out when they're less than half full because it looks bad

Jason Blitman: 14:06

Uhhuh, huh?

Seán Hewitt: 14:07

So she used to be able to get the half empty at once. We would go over and she would hand them out and be like, I have I have the Marla perfume or whatever. And I was sitting there and it was in the middle of the day in the garden. And she sprayed this Chanel perfume and it was my gran who died when I was like 10.

Jason Blitman: 14:28

Wow.

Seán Hewitt: 14:29

But I, and I couldn't have told you what. Perfume she wore and then I immediately started crying and no one knew why I was crying, but it, like getting a hug from my grand'cause I could smell like the smell of her skin. And it's very weird. I just immediately, like the past and present were just joined together. And I was eight years old with my gran. And then she gave me the bottle and I've not opened the bottle.'cause I can't deal with opening the bottle.

Jason Blitman: 14:58

What's amazing is when you're able to pinpoint it you can pinpoint the scent and you can pinpoint the memory. I have a somewhat similar example you've mentioned having never been to LA before, and here's a plug for our conversation in LA at Book Soup on April 18th. But dear friends of mine moved out to la They were a few years older than me and I went to visit them when I was a teenager and. At the time they were wearing the artist Brido. He has these like very specific art pieces. It doesn't really matter, but he's an artist and apparently he also had a cologne and they, that became their scent the very beginning of their time in la. And I wanna say I was at some store where you can buy discount clothes and colognes and things, and they had a bottle of this cologne years later and I bought it and immediately was transported back to my teen years, the first time I was in la. And I think I got rid of it. I might still have it, but it's one of those things where it's so bizarre to be able to transport yourself in a way by smelling something.

Seán Hewitt: 16:13

Yeah. I mean it's a, it's like a, it seems to just bypass so much stuff in your head and immediately fuse, fuse time together in a weird way. I,

Jason Blitman: 16:25

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 16:26

when I was writing the book so it's set over the four seasons and I tried to write each season. When I was in the season that I, so I began,

Jason Blitman: 16:35

Oh,

Seán Hewitt: 16:36

and then I went to spring, when it was spring at,

Jason Blitman: 16:38

That's very, I'm a poet of you.

Seán Hewitt: 16:41

thank you. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 16:42

No. Oh my God. I'm gonna give you a complex, I really meant that in a deeply charming way. I'm very charmed by it, so I don't mean it in a bad way.

Seán Hewitt: 16:50

That was a good way of getting that sensory, smells or the way that light falls in a certain month or whatever, because it's hard to remember it all when you're if I was sitting at the desk in winter and I was trying to write springtime, it would be full of even though how many springs have I lived through? You need the immediacy of it to get it onto the page properly.

Jason Blitman: 17:11

And strangely enough, that's where you get a cliche. You would end up with a cliche of spraying because it is what's coming to mind versus deep realities of it.

Seán Hewitt: 17:21

Yeah. Possibly. Yeah,'cause yeah. Yeah. So I, that was one cliche, but I tried to I wrote during reasons. Yeah. What other cliches can I give you?

Jason Blitman: 17:30

Oh my God. Stop it.

Seán Hewitt: 17:33

I can just try them out. No, but yeah, sensory memory was a big thing and I had this almost at the start of brides had revisited when he goes back to the house and it's become like a military all the soldiers are stationed in bright set. And he goes back and he has this, and I think he goes to the chapel and then, the story emerges out there. You go I think I stole it from, I,

Jason Blitman: 17:59

Yeah, I think that's, there is that sort of concept of you, you find yourself in a place that you knew once upon a time and you're transported back. There's this realization that James May not have actually left the place behind, and do you even think that we do leave places behind?

Seán Hewitt: 18:17

no, I don't think so. I think, so I lived in a village very like this. And now I've, now I live in Dublin and I've lived here for a long time. But I think I'm essentially the person that was raised in that village. I am not a Dublin. I don't, it's not, I live here, but it's not me. No matter how much I would try and change that. I think I am a villagey person.

Jason Blitman: 18:42

Are you open to adaptation?

Seán Hewitt: 18:46

Yeah. Is that an offer?

Jason Blitman: 18:50

No. I grew up, I don't know how familiar you are with the United States geography, but I grew up in South Florida, which is a very specific place. I went to school in Chicago and I lived for over 10 years in New York City. And I don't know how long you've been in Dublin, but I would say that I, it got to a point where I don't consider myself a Floridian anymore. I've spent so much of my formative time living in a big city that I am a, I'm a city mouse, and I. There I think are pieces of me that I can still see from my past. We don't leave these places behind. But I think I was open to adapting to the new space.

Seán Hewitt: 19:34

yeah. I definitely am. I guess what I mean is, if you think of, places you experience as an adult, I think have a particular, you, you have a particular way of experiencing it.

Jason Blitman: 19:46

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 19:47

I could, if I think of my living room from when I was like five, I could tell you what color the carpet is, what the curtains look like, what the Curtain looked like, the, what the key felt like to get into the record cabinet or whatever. I have such a strong memory of all those things, and I, I was speaking to my mom about this and she couldn't remember what curtains we had, and I, but they were they were the only curtains I'd ever seen, and they were curtains. So I have a really strong memory of them, whereas now, I couldn't tell you what curtains I had in the first house. I moved in, in Dublin. I have no

Jason Blitman: 20:19

That is so interesting and I think really changed my perspective on even what I just said because I remember my childhood address, I remember my phone number, I remember, the neighbors. I don't remember any of the addresses of the places that I've lived in since, some, but mostly not. And similarly I was talking to my mom about a car that she had at some point, and she didn't remember that it even existed. And it's the car that I took my driving test

Seán Hewitt: 20:49

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you remember it.

Jason Blitman: 20:51

So of course I remember it.

Seán Hewitt: 20:53

I can still, I still know the license number of the first car. It was a red renos vest. L

Jason Blitman: 20:58

how funny.

Seán Hewitt: 21:00

I I remember, and I have no idea what any license number I've had since, and my mom actually has my. The mobile phone number, which was my first mobile phone'cause, and she still has it. And that's the only phone number I have, but I know that one.

Jason Blitman: 21:19

That's so funny.

Seán Hewitt: 21:20

I think maybe I'm for remembering things. Just get

Jason Blitman: 21:23

yeah, it's, that's very true. How does your coming out story compare to James's experience?

Seán Hewitt: 21:30

Very different.

Jason Blitman: 21:32

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 21:33

am I coming out story? I was the only person in school so that's that is similar to James. But I volunteered the information.

Jason Blitman: 21:41

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 21:41

I was well with the help of alcohol, but there was a big house party. It was actually on a farm. And everyone was really drunk and I got really of drunk. And I told someone, and then I guess I just had the, a kind of moment where I was like, I've told one person, I may as well just walk around this house party and tell every single person I encounter. So I did that and then the next day I woke up and I was like, oh shit. I told, 200 people last night, so I better tell my parents because like

Jason Blitman: 22:15

It's a small town,

Seán Hewitt: 22:16

someone we'll find out anyway, so I'm go down and tell them. When I came out in my school, there was no one else that had come out. So I was thinking, if. There would've been no one else for James as well, if he was there. Find this weird thing. I remember I used to work in this cocktail bar in the village and I went back after I'd finished university because I didn't have a, like a job or anything. So I just went back and worked in this cocktail bar and this boy, he was probably about 15, came up to me and was like, you were the gay guy in school. And I think he must have clocked me when he was like maybe 11 or 12, because I was maybe one at the time. So that was weird because obviously I didn't know who he was, but I was somehow like famous for being the only gay. Obviously I wasn't, people have come up but.

Jason Blitman: 23:10

Sure. No, it's, I remember when I was in high school, I think I'm maybe a hair older than you. The, there were like four of us, and we all had our own journey, right? Like I was the, I was a feeder kid, but I was also just I was very liked, but also kept to myself. I wasn't really, I didn't really make a spectacle of things. Then there were other people who, wore rainbow clothes to school and felt that they needed to be a quintessential homosexual compared, not dissimilar from, will and grace. And I think that sort of esta we, we established these strange roles throughout our high school experience. I.

Seán Hewitt: 23:56

Yeah. You have to demarcate yourself.

Jason Blitman: 23:58

Yeah. Something interesting comes up in the book the idea of breaking a taboo when James has admitted that he has desires and is no longer innocent. And I realize that's such an interesting shade of coming out. Like you don't think, oh, I'm not just talking about, I'm not just sharing a piece of myself. I'm not just sharing my sexuality. I am saying that I am having desires.

Seán Hewitt: 24:27

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a really weird situation because it, if you're straight you don't have to go up to your parents and be like, I wanna have sex with women. But implicitly in what you're saying as a 15-year-old or 16-year-old, however old you are, is I am a sexual being. I'm no longer a child. Kind of demarcating that break. And I think in some ways for a parent, that must be a quite a strange thing depending on the age you are when it happens. But either way I think, we don't tend to talk about sex with the parents. And it is the one moment at which you actually have to implicitly do that. Yeah, I, and I, so I think it is a bit of a taboo breaking thing.'cause you're demarcating childhood and adulthood yourself. You're doing it yourself.

Jason Blitman: 25:18

Yeah. And there's conversation too in the book about struggling to be seen as an adult in an environment where people see you as a child.

Seán Hewitt: 25:28

yeah,

Jason Blitman: 25:29

And I talk a lot about. How being an adult is a farce and is not real and is an illusion. And I think, the older you get, the more you're like, oh, when am I gonna become an adult?

Seán Hewitt: 25:43

yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 25:45

Because there's always, I'm sure plenty of people will argue with me, but I don't feel like I know everything in quotes, the way that I think a younger me would've thought I would've known in my mid to late thirties. You know what I mean?

Seán Hewitt: 25:58

Yeah, and I think as a teenager you have this weird thing where in your head you are all, you have it figured out, even though all evidence might say to the contrary. And it is incredibly, I remember being incredibly frustrated at, having to follow rules, go to school not stay out past x time Be watched and everything because I, when you're like 16, 17, 18, you're like ready to do it on your own, but you are treated like the same as if you were like 12. And there's this window where, where you're held, you're like in a holding pen for adulthood until you out

Jason Blitman: 26:41

it's funny, I was just remembering, this was like a week ago. My husband and I were with friends of ours who are even older than us, and it's a long story, but there was cake and we brought cake to their house and they at the time went by and they said, oh, should we eat cake even though, it's five o'clock and we haven't had dinner and whatever. And I literally said, I was like, this is the perk of being an adult.

Seán Hewitt: 27:10

we can eat cake whenever.

Jason Blitman: 27:11

can eat cake whenever. It doesn't matter.

Seán Hewitt: 27:14

Yeah. Sometimes I get that sense too, I am always, in terms of breakfast I'm the most boring breakfast person ever.'cause I never really hungry in the morning, so I just eat a banana and some cereal or something.

Jason Blitman: 27:26

I've only had a banana so far today too. I admit I get it

Seán Hewitt: 27:30

Like sometimes when I wake up, I suppose particularly if I've had a drink the night before and I'm like, I could have anything, want right now, there's no one to stop me. So if I want to get up and make like pancakes and pour chocolate on top of it and whatever I want, I can do that and I can eat it in bed and can stop me. And that's very freeing. But sometimes we need to stop ourselves, this could go wrong. This sort of like just permissiveness. But yeah.

Jason Blitman: 28:01

And interestingly enough, again, I'm just thinking about this if to do something like I'm an adult and I'm gonna order a pizza at eight o'clock in the morning because I can, to someone who only, who has known us since childhood or who sees us as younger than them, that can come across as childish, which is very, it's it's, I'm curious to hear what, go ahead. What were you gonna

Seán Hewitt: 28:28

I was gonna ask I remember when my memoir came out. It was 2022, I was 30, I was 31 going on 32, and there was a tenant in one of the reviews called me something like a Wise Child and. Which, in some ways it was like a, they tried to put it on the book jacket and I was like, please do not put that on the book jacket. And one thing I realized was like, at my age, my parents had all three of our, of us, they were married, had a half, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I wonder if in some way, because I don't have children because I'm not married, maybe I'm like also perceived as having this kind of childish lifestyle. Like it's not meditation of adulthood, which are like children, marriage, a mortgage, whatever. And so even though I just don't really see how 32 could be a child, unless you're like really old. I wonder if in some, I don't think it's just like queer people.'cause I think some straight. Women friends have the same thing too. But yeah, it just kinda struck me about all the different ways in which we're perceived as being like a child who is an adult. Anyway maybe part of that observation about the teenager came from me feeling like a child being treated an adult as a child. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 30:00

so interesting. And I'm like, horrified for you. That's very frustrating. there are so many juxtapositions and paradoxes throughout the book and the idea of James being afraid of men, but also only feel safe if there's a man nearby. And I, it had me thinking about just other paradoxes as a queer person not being attracted to women, but. Having so many female friends and wanting them in my life. The, there's a scene in the book, and this is not giving anything away but James is aroused by seeing naked women because he's, because of the idea of a man being aroused by that naked woman is arousing to him, and that's also interesting and complicated. Are there other aspects of being a queer person that are so paradoxical that come to mind for

Seán Hewitt: 30:57

I think, yeah, I was, the more I was describing James, with his weird idea of he has a kind of jealousy of women because of male desire. And I. Maybe that's a sort of paradox, like feeling safe around women and disliking men, but wanting to be like a woman so that the guys would fancy, like he has this whole like, gender mess in his head that he's trying to figure out as well. Other paradoxes one thing,

Jason Blitman: 31:31

maybe the answer is no.

Seán Hewitt: 31:32

One of them I think as well is wanting, being relatively afraid of the masculinity of straight men Being massively attracted to the masculinity of straight men, which is his kind of key thing, that's his like, ongoing pattern is that he. He can only, I suppose the other one is he can only want something when he doesn't have it.

Jason Blitman: 32:01

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 32:02

And the second he gets something, it collapses some sort of momentum inside him. It's like you know that you can only desire something. You don't

Jason Blitman: 32:10

there's this very interesting dance between anticipation and desire,

Seán Hewitt: 32:16

Yeah. And fulfillment

Jason Blitman: 32:19

right?

Seán Hewitt: 32:19

in almost as soon as the fulfillment. I think in James has said, maybe this is like after the book but I think in his head, once something is fulfilled, he's not fulfilled. So he has this like weird kind of ongoingness to

Jason Blitman: 32:39

Yeah. Sometimes the thing that is attractive, the thing that is exciting is the chase.

Seán Hewitt: 32:45

Yeah. Yeah. And.

Jason Blitman: 32:46

And then once you catch it, then it's not exciting anymore.

Seán Hewitt: 32:49

Yeah. And part of me, some of the book came from I was speaking to so many friends over the years who's who said, the first person I loved was my straight friend. Or like, I had this guy that I, we were very close and I always thought there was something there, but now he's married to, to a woman and they have And I, part of my question was like, what does that do to your mindset? If your kind of formative understanding of love and desire is for someone who will never reciprocate, that you understand love and desire as something unreciprocated. And so when it's reciprocated, it doesn't feel like love and desire.

Jason Blitman: 33:32

Interesting. It, there was a moment. In the book that I probably just underlined and didn't actually write down in the sense of a question But it made me think of that line from Moulin Rouge. The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.

Seán Hewitt: 33:48

know I'm gonna get beaten off this podcast, but I haven't seen it. You'll face Yeah, no, I've never seen one march.

Jason Blitman: 33:55

Interesting. Are you're literally turning red. That's okay. You're, listen, you are proving that you are not a cliche,

Seán Hewitt: 34:03

that is true.

Jason Blitman: 34:04

But you have a month and a half to rectify this before we meet in person.

Seán Hewitt: 34:08

Okay. I.

Jason Blitman: 34:11

Do you like theater? Do you like theatrical things, heightened things?

Seán Hewitt: 34:16

Um,

Jason Blitman: 34:16

Say no.

Seán Hewitt: 34:18

I like theater. I'm lukewarm on musicals.

Jason Blitman: 34:22

Mm,

Seán Hewitt: 34:23

It a musical?

Jason Blitman: 34:24

It's, yeah, the short answer is

Seán Hewitt: 34:26

It has like pop songs in there.

Jason Blitman: 34:27

Yeah. Yeah. It's songs that you have heard, or at least you could also listen to on the radio if you've not heard of them. But it's this, it is a love story that is so epic and romantic in quotation marks that I think the only way it can be visualized is through this like spectacle. And that's why it is, I think, a musical.

Seán Hewitt: 34:55

I feel like I've seen so much of Moulin Rouge that when I watch it, maybe it will just feel like I've already seen it.

Jason Blitman: 35:04

You also don't have to watch it. It's really fine

Seán Hewitt: 35:06

No I have certainly gaps in my

Jason Blitman: 35:08

in your queer canon.

Seán Hewitt: 35:10

yeah. Principally musicals. I think. Yeah, there's something about people singing happily. I like a sad musical, maybe that's my own sort

Jason Blitman: 35:18

Moulin Rouge, I would argue is sad.

Seán Hewitt: 35:21

I'll watch it.

Jason Blitman: 35:21

Yeah. I was having a conversation with a guest recently about musicals and she was like, how could people not love musicals? I was like, listen girl, so many people I talk to cannot get on board with a person just breaking out into

Seán Hewitt: 35:35

Yeah. I think I do have like favorite musicals, but I think that my

Jason Blitman: 35:42

What are they?

Seán Hewitt: 35:42

capacity I love the sound of music and she just breaks into song all the time, and that's like a very campy, whatever.

Jason Blitman: 35:50

Not what I was expecting, but also the Nazi show up at the end.

Seán Hewitt: 35:54

I love how that film just gets I don't know, I have whole theories about this film. Do you know how it like starts on the, sorry I told you musicals, but I do have theories about sound of music.

Jason Blitman: 36:05

Tell me

Seán Hewitt: 36:05

I just think, you know how it, like you start up in the mountains and it's like blue and green and technical and whatever and as you go through the film, the spaces get smaller and the film gets darker to the point where you're like scurrying through a tunnel at the end. So it feels like this whole film just closes all the way down to the and I like that. I like how it just progressively constructs

Jason Blitman: 36:32

yeah. Oh, okay.

Seán Hewitt: 36:34

big fan of the sand music. I also Oliver, I used to really like Oliver. I was actually in little Shopifys in school.

Jason Blitman: 36:45

Who did you play?

Seán Hewitt: 36:46

I was the dentist.

Jason Blitman: 36:48

You were. That's shocking, but I'm obsessed.

Seán Hewitt: 36:51

don't really remember much about it.

Jason Blitman: 36:53

You blacked

Seán Hewitt: 36:54

Job was as the dentist, I was putting teeth out. I don't know.

Jason Blitman: 36:57

You had a song.

Seán Hewitt: 36:58

Had a song. My mom was really, is really obsessed with some musicals. She used to sing them a lot, so I actually, I know a lot of the songs from musicals'cause she listen to them in the car, but I've actually seen the musical that they get along.

Jason Blitman: 37:12

That's okay. So Sound of Music and Oliver are things you enjoy and you were in little shop

Seán Hewitt: 37:19

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 37:20

Okay,

Seán Hewitt: 37:21

It's quite a mixed bag.

Jason Blitman: 37:25

It's, I'm very intrigued. I think that says a lot about who you

Seán Hewitt: 37:29

It's a, of culture Makes no sense.

Jason Blitman: 37:32

James in the book is a an assistant to the milkman. First of all, because the book, that plot line doesn't take place that long ago. I mean, It does frustratingly as a person who feels like two, 2002 was not that long ago. But I did a little research'cause I was curious. Apparently presently 3% of milk purchases in the UK are delivered and 0.4% in the United States. It's a very small number,

Seán Hewitt: 38:03

a small number. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 38:04

but it does still happen.

Seán Hewitt: 38:06

We used to it was actually my brother that worked for the Notman. I didn't work for the Notman.

Jason Blitman: 38:10

I was gonna ask what your job was.'cause I assumed you didn't work for the milkman, but your brother did. Oh my God.

Seán Hewitt: 38:16

I had a paper round.

Jason Blitman: 38:18

A paper round.

Seán Hewitt: 38:20

Which I.

Jason Blitman: 38:21

You made a face about it.

Seán Hewitt: 38:22

I used to hate it because it was a free paper, so it had all of these it was basically funded by advertising. All the advertising was in leaflets. So what they would do is they would deliver you the papers and then they would deliver you like 10 packs of leaflets and you have to individually put all the leaflets in. So that took like the whole Sunday night, like maybe three or four hours of just putting the leaflets in the pavers. And then you would have to deliver them. And I think I wanna go, say I delivered them on a Thursday and I think I got five pounds a week. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So it wasn't like it was bad money then, but I had to have a job.'cause we weren't like a pocket money family,

Jason Blitman: 39:03

yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 39:03

so it was more, I think I, so long as I had this job, my parents would consider spending money on me. But if I wasn't. I didn't have any initiative and doing anything then. But my older brother, yeah, he used to do the milk round. They had him up really early though. I think you have to get up at four or five. But

Jason Blitman: 39:22

James had to wake up very early in the

Seán Hewitt: 39:24

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 39:25

You were just talking about your parents and a little bit of, your childhood and your behavior. Were you a rule follower?

Seán Hewitt: 39:32

Yes, in comparison to my brothers. Yeah. Yeah, my, my older brother broke all of the rules, so by that point it probably wasn't that attractive for me to break rules because

Jason Blitman: 39:46

Yeah.

Seán Hewitt: 39:46

it was nothing new. So I followed them.

Jason Blitman: 39:50

So similar to James,'cause James is a rule follower and being in trouble stresses him out. He is very clearly attracted to what one might call a bad boy. Is that true for you?

Seán Hewitt: 40:03

I have learn my lesson. But yeah, I suppose instinctively, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 40:12

Oh,

Seán Hewitt: 40:12

But to the, I think to the point of attracted to you but would never pursue because it would, you know, I know that I would go like just sort loopy.

Jason Blitman: 40:23

Yeah, no, I get that. Do you remember there's this like great little moment in the book of James remembering the moment he sees Luke For the first time. Do you have one of those memories, whether it's someone from your childhood or your boyfriend, or do you remember that sort of first moment of seeing that person?

Seán Hewitt: 40:46

Yeah. I think I remember the first moment of seeing quite a lot of people. I remember the first moment of seeing my boyfriend although I don't know if I'm inventing that memory,'cause I know where we were.

Jason Blitman: 40:57

Oh, interesting.

Seán Hewitt: 40:58

his face now onto. I don't know, I find it difficult sometimes to remember what people used to look like if you see them a lot, you lose that earlier face.

Jason Blitman: 41:09

What you just said is such an interesting color a shade of the book itself, because what is the memory?

Seán Hewitt: 41:17

Yeah. I think in this book I wanted you to know, kinda right from the start, there's a couple of moments in the prologue where James obviously lies to people. Like the bartender in the pub he lies to, and the reader that he's lying because he's already told something.

Jason Blitman: 41:33

The real estate agent he

Seán Hewitt: 41:35

Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted you to know that he is in some ways an editor of memory also, that he has certain things he. Maybe doesn't want to tell you or maybe never tells you outright through the book. And there are certain things as well that are nostalgic for him. And I think, in general, nostalgia has a bad rep and I understand why. But I think that every single person has these nostalgic things and I don't know people seem to talk about nostalgia it's like an indulgence and a kind of a lie, a fantasy thing. But I think it's also something that we do to build up stories for our life. Like there, there are moments that mean a lot to us and we wrap them in this kind of colorful shroud of nostalgia. It is almost like making a sacred thing of something in, in a. And I don't think that's necessarily bad. I think if anything it just is indicative of the sort of person that we are. And yeah, so James first sees Luke in a very Luke moment. He is like smoking a cigarette and he is annoyed. He's in trouble and he is avoiding doing work at the back of a barn. But he's beautiful, it's a, and he has a sort of energy that the James doesn't have which is a I suppose he just feels very alive to James'cause he's not really thinking, or he appears not to be thinking about other people and not bothered about what other people think. Although I think at various points that mask slips off has, in some ways we. We project other people into the world as much as we see them.

Jason Blitman: 43:25

For better or for worse

Seán Hewitt: 43:26

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 43:28

Talking about memory, there are also sequences about dreams. Do you remember your dreams?

Seán Hewitt: 43:35

Quite often I, I have some like very vivid dreams that I remember to the point of, maybe I had them about 15 years ago, and I can still remember the dream. Most nights I, I think I, I don't remember them or that kind of true. But there have been a couple of big dreams in my my mainly because they tend to be very surreal. I, yeah, I don't want to bore you by telling you my dreams, but yeah, I did actually have a dream. There's a number of dreams that James has in the book. I don't wanna,

Jason Blitman: 44:04

oh, sorry.

Seán Hewitt: 44:05

I don't wanna give spoilers because I the content of the dream.

Jason Blitman: 44:08

That's why I interrupted you. So now I'm curious because James also has reoccurring dreams. Do you have reoccurring dreams?

Seán Hewitt: 44:17

I did at one point. I had, and I won't tell you what the dream was because it's similar to to James's recurring dream, but I had a very similar set of dreams. I don't really know where they came from and then stops. But they always involved tunnels. I, it was either like, I was in a tunnel, I was in the, in a river bed and it was dried out that I couldn't get out the side of it. I was running away. I was, but it was always tumbles. I don't,

Jason Blitman: 44:43

Were you at the end of the Sound of Music?

Seán Hewitt: 44:46

yeah, just singing. Yeah, I just, I, I remember having this feeling of being chased and I was in a tunnel. Or usually I'd done something really wrong, but I dunno what the thing wrong was, but I was wrong.

Jason Blitman: 44:57

oh, interesting. I don't remember what reoccurring dreams were when I was a kid, but I remembered how they made me feel and there was a specific like cadence to the dream and in turn sort of my emotional response to it. And that has reoccurred somewhat recently in adulthood.

Seán Hewitt: 45:22

Was it a dream or a nightmare? Would you, what, how would you characterize it?

Jason Blitman: 45:26

That's a good question. I don't know, maybe something in between.

Seán Hewitt: 45:29

Yeah, I only ask because I think the bad thing about recurring dreams is when you have one, if you have it again, you then become afraid of the dream. I, I remember as a teenager sometimes being afraid of going to sleep because I thought that the dream would. Happen again because I'd had it a number of times. And yeah, it wasn't that bad a dream, but like I just remember building it up into this thing that I didn't want to go sleep it, like nightmare on Elm Street or something.

Jason Blitman: 46:00

Oh, wow. Yeah. How do you sleep at night when that's the case?

Seán Hewitt: 46:04

Drop off to sleep. But sometimes I would do this thing where I would return to the dream. Do you ever do that?

Jason Blitman: 46:10

Oh

Seán Hewitt: 46:11

No.

Jason Blitman: 46:12

Oh yeah. I know. There we can have a whole conversation about that, I'm sure. And what that means. There is a moment where James talks about listening to his mixed CDs. What would be on yours?

Seán Hewitt: 46:24

Oh God. In 2002 or now,

Jason Blitman: 46:28

Let's say both.

Seán Hewitt: 46:29

I actually I've made a Spotify playlist that I think is James's Spotify playlist. I.

Jason Blitman: 46:35

Yeah. No, I wanna know yours. I don't want to know James's. I want to know yours. And then we could also, I could link the, I could link that Spotify playlist in the episode.

Seán Hewitt: 46:45

Okay, so here is on it. George Michael straight on there. Maybe like father figure or who else? I love Julie. Did you hear Millie Jackson?

Jason Blitman: 47:00

No.

Seán Hewitt: 47:02

listen to Millie Jackson. She has this album that I found in a record shop, and then I became so obsessed with it. It's called Feeling Bitchy.

Jason Blitman: 47:10

I'm so excited.

Seán Hewitt: 47:11

it has this 10 minute song at the start that's like part rap, part song, and she's amazing. Anyway so I feel like I need to spread the good word. She's the one that's saying, if loving you is wrong, I don't want to be right. But that's on a different album. But that's the song that people know. I am also big into folk music. So Shirley Collins is my queen, and she would be up there on any mix tape that I have.

Jason Blitman: 47:35

Okay.

Seán Hewitt: 47:36

And Bessie Smith. I love Bessie Smith. I love a sad lady.

Jason Blitman: 47:44

Why does that not surprise me? I mean, You're a fricking poet. Of course. You love sad ladies. Who would be on mine? That's a good question. But you talking about liking folk music? I'm a big Yola fan. Do you know Yola?

Seán Hewitt: 47:57

No.

Jason Blitman: 47:58

Oh, and she's from the UK too. You Yeah. I think you'd be into

Seán Hewitt: 48:04

Okay.

Jason Blitman: 48:04

It's very like soulful folk.

Seán Hewitt: 48:07

On the list. Yeah

Jason Blitman: 48:09

what would be on mine? I am talking about nostalgia. I'm such a sucker for the Spice Girls and things from my

Seán Hewitt: 48:17

yeah,

Jason Blitman: 48:18

And I don't know. I love a good, I love a good song with a good hook. I think it depends on

Seán Hewitt: 48:23

yeah. I, Kate Bush, I need to put Kate Bush on there. But yeah, I was making a kind of 2002 playlist. It's so much bad music from a real D year.'cause I think it was a transition between the nineties, which felt like authentic in its own way and between indie music, which I feel like the naughties were, became that, or

Jason Blitman: 48:46

uhhuh.

Seán Hewitt: 48:46

there's this moment in 2002 three when no one knows what the fuck is going on, and they're just like putting out songs that have no coherence. There's no sound of 2002. It's all just a myths.

Jason Blitman: 48:59

I think that's maybe. Part of what makes it interesting, right? It's like a little bit of the past, a little bit of the future and,

Seán Hewitt: 49:05

I mean, there are also pretty good, really good songs for it. But there's also,

Jason Blitman: 49:10

but you, but there's not like a sound

Seán Hewitt: 49:12

no, also, like in 2002 there would be like in the nineties too, there'd be like one song and that was like this, the number one for four months. And that was the song. The 2002 was Dilemma. Nelly and Kelly that was that song

Jason Blitman: 49:28

Would not have

Seán Hewitt: 49:29

also very 2002.

Jason Blitman: 49:31

Avril Levine. Oh, sure.

Seán Hewitt: 49:33

and then Pink arrived 2003 and saves a day.

Jason Blitman: 49:37

God bless Pink. What was I just gonna say about music? Oh, contextually I find it interesting. Are we dancing? Are we having, wine night. Are we at a dinner party? Are we doing work And listening to music in the background, I would've a different answer for all of those

Seán Hewitt: 49:57

yeah. Fair. I think you need adaptable playlists.

Jason Blitman: 50:00

Yeah, I know. I was just thinking about how I need to do like a gym playlist, a getting ready for an interview playlist. I need to, I need my different

Seán Hewitt: 50:10

yeah. Yep. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

Jason Blitman: 50:12

I know it's worth investing. You said naughties and you're the second author in a row that has second UK author in a row who has used the term the Naughties. And I've never, I've heard the knots, but I've never heard the naughties. And I'm

Seán Hewitt: 50:30

What do you say?

Jason Blitman: 50:32

Honestly, we say the two thousands, which is ridiculous.

Seán Hewitt: 50:36

I don't know it, it's just the naughties. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 50:38

I, the naughties is way more fun. I'm gonna start saying the naughties and we're gonna, we're gonna make it happen here in the states.

Seán Hewitt: 50:44

You need to take that to the states. It needs to be

Jason Blitman: 50:47

Yeah. No, we're gonna, this is the moment, Sean. We're starting the naughties right now. I have, I'm so excited that we get to continue this conversation in person'cause I have plenty of other things I'm looking forward to talking to you about. But to end here, I, there's something that comes up in the book I'm curious to ask you. You need to learn to enjoy yourself and it's a struggle. I'm curious, is there something that you've done? Is there a way that you've learned to enjoy yourself?

Seán Hewitt: 51:15

Yeah, I'm about to say the most geriatric thing in the world. really like gardening now. I have spent so many hours and hours I've I've made a chart. I'm planting my seeds. I am got a cold frame. I'm building beds. I'm blissing out with my, I've actually got soil in my nails right now'cause I was digging. And that's what I do.

Jason Blitman: 51:43

Fantastic.

Seán Hewitt: 51:45

I know this really boring answer, but like it does honestly.

Jason Blitman: 51:49

Okay. That I have a plant behind me. I have other plants in my home. If ever I have a question, I'm gonna send you a picture and be like, Sean, help

Seán Hewitt: 51:57

Yeah. I'm figuring it out, but yeah, and yeah, I do that a lot. I do.

Jason Blitman: 52:03

You're not the first person to say that.

Seán Hewitt: 52:04

Okay, good. Maybe I think I'm having like a retreat to, to, to the garden.

Jason Blitman: 52:11

I love this.

Seán Hewitt: 52:12

maybe, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 52:13

You could read in the garden, you could write in the garden. There could be a garden poem that comes up.

Seán Hewitt: 52:17

But I was just in the States and I kept on texting my boyfriend being like, I need you to send me photos of, because, and I was so excited to come back to see some of the bugs are on the trees. And I was like, I went around and I was like, what's out? What's not? Does she need a prune? Does she need

Jason Blitman: 52:36

Oh my God,

Seán Hewitt: 52:36

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 52:38

that's so fun. The one thing I will leave you with before we go is your headshot is infuriating to me because not everyone looks good in profile

Seán Hewitt: 52:52

I already

Jason Blitman: 52:52

and you look so good in profile. It's very frustrating.

Seán Hewitt: 52:55

I think I have, I think everyone has one good side. If I turn my head the other way, you wouldn't be saying that.

Jason Blitman: 53:00

Oh, that's interesting. But it also made me think,'cause I asked you about if you remember seeing people for the first time. It made me remember the very first time I saw my husband was in a Facebook, his profile picture was literally his profile. That's the very first glimpse I ever had of him. Anyway Sean Hewitt

Seán Hewitt: 53:18

Thank you.

Jason Blitman: 53:19

open heaven, congrats

Seán Hewitt: 53:23

Out in April,

Jason Blitman: 53:24

out in April and we will be live in person at book soup on April, on Friday, April 18th. Come hang out with us and those are all the

Seán Hewitt: 53:32

Yeah, we'll see you then.

Jason Blitman: 53:34

See you there. Look at you. Look at all these books on your shelf

Jeffery Self: 53:37

GA's reading, baby.

Jason Blitman: 53:40

And the giant j marque le letter.

Jeffery Self: 53:43

That right there? Yes. It's I, the first day I moved into my apartment when I moved back to New York, like a year and a half ago, and I was walking by the Housing Works, which is the Great Lake thrift

Jason Blitman: 53:55

Freaking love

Jeffery Self: 53:56

We love, and I was we had just moved back to the West Village, or not back, I'm say back. I had just moved back to New York, but moved to the West Village and I walked by and there was a giant lit up j in the window and I bought it. And then my husband arrived like two days later and was like, what about an A for his name? But we couldn't find one. But here we are, a year and a half later,

Jason Blitman: 54:18

I want it,

Jeffery Self: 54:19

time for him. I know. It's it's beautiful. It's it's really. And it puts out really cool light at night. Like when I turn off all the lights and watch a movie, it has a nice aesthetic,

Jason Blitman: 54:29

Okay, so years ago at the Broadway flea market, I.

Jeffery Self: 54:33

okay. I love

Jason Blitman: 54:34

the Ju Janssen organization had a table and they were selling marquee letters from above the St. James that were from Phons Rainbow. And they were these two giant ends. And for three years in a row, I had dreams of buying them and making. End tables out of them.

Jeffery Self: 55:00

Hey, get outta here. Get

Jason Blitman: 55:03

I never did and it's one of my biggest regrets and seeing that just dusted up that trauma. So

Jeffery Self: 55:09

I get it. I saw that production of Ian's Rainbow. I saw those ends on the, on above the building.

Jason Blitman: 55:15

that production was very good

Jeffery Self: 55:16

It was Cheyenne Jackson. And who is the lady? Kate Baldwin. Kate Baldwin. Yeah. I liked it.

Jason Blitman: 55:23

Baldwin.

Jeffery Self: 55:23

And Chuck Cooper, he was really good. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 55:25

Chuck Cooper and Chris Fitzgerald. I know.

Jeffery Self: 55:28

What a good show.

Jason Blitman: 55:29

what a good show.

Jeffery Self: 55:30

I just noticed Kathy Rigby popping over your shoulder.

Jason Blitman: 55:33

No,

Jeffery Self: 55:35

Is That's what that is, right?

Jason Blitman: 55:37

I'm

Jeffery Self: 55:37

I love.

Jason Blitman: 55:38

that you clock that.

Jeffery Self: 55:41

I can clock Kathy Rigby from a mile away Baby. I love that production. I grew up with that. I don't know if it was on VHS or DVD when I was a kid, but I loved, it was so beautiful. And I don't know if you remember the clip of her when she performs at the Tony's and she flies over the audience, which is like unbelievable and the best

Jason Blitman: 56:00

my life.

Jeffery Self: 56:00

It cuts to Goldie Han in the audience watching and she is, I think she's with Kurt, I assume, and she leans over. I don't know why. Goldie, Han's to Tony's either. And she like, she leans over to Kurt and she goes, it's so small, like talking about the cord holding her up. She's she can't believe how small it is. And it's like Goldie ha, you've seen someone fly before? This is 90 something in 2000, who knows? But she was very impressed and it was impressive'cause she did the flips and she was very good.

Jason Blitman: 56:27

I have to watch rewatch that performance I

Jeffery Self: 56:31

I do. It's great.

Jason Blitman: 56:32

that entire, production lives in my mind. Rent free. I am, I have her 1991 poster. This is the 1996 poster.

Jeffery Self: 56:43

Yeah. That's the one I know.

Jason Blitman: 56:45

And I also have her 2014 poster or whatever, because she did it not long ago. So I have these, I have this like triptych of Kathy Rebe getter.

Jeffery Self: 56:57

I know this isn't the point of this podcast, however, did you, did she like, runs a theater? She and her husband,

Jason Blitman: 57:04

Yes, in Southern California oh my God,

Jeffery Self: 57:06

Is it La

Jason Blitman: 57:07

with an lamada.

Jeffery Self: 57:08

Yeah. Which I went to see Greece at and she was not in it, but it's in like a shopping mall in, in like next to a, literally an LA fitness. It was a fascinating, I like was smoking a joint between acts as you do and I was outside of an LA Fitness. It was like, I think this is the first time I've gotten stoned at intermission of a musical outside of a LA Fitness.

Jason Blitman: 57:28

Unless you're, I guess in outside of where Blockheads used to be, if you're seeing

Jeffery Self: 57:32

I guess that's true.

Jason Blitman: 57:33

There's a gym right there.

Jeffery Self: 57:35

I've gotten stoned there.

Jason Blitman: 57:36

that's so funny. Jeffrey Self, welcome to Gay's Reading.

Jeffery Self: 57:41

Hey, thanks for having me. I love your podcast. I think it's great.

Jason Blitman: 57:45

Oh, thank you so much.

Jeffery Self: 57:46

I really do. It's I'm a gay and I love to read and I enjoy other gay people reading.

Jason Blitman: 57:53

Amazing. I know, me too. I, as if you've listened, you might've heard me say before, you don't realize how many people are actual readers until you start talking about reading.

Jeffery Self: 58:03

I know people don't flaunt it enough everything else about everybody's fucking life, but not I. What they're reading. I only post basically on my social media about what I'm reading, so I feel like people are a little okay, we get it. You read. But I I wish I certainly want people to be reading now'cause I have a book coming out, but or at least buying books. But I yeah,

Jason Blitman: 58:22

That's all you need. You just need them to buy the books. It doesn't really matter if they're reading.

Jeffery Self: 58:26

at the end of the day, yeah.

Jason Blitman: 58:28

So I see all these beautiful books behind you.

Jeffery Self: 58:30

Yes,

Jason Blitman: 58:31

I have a couple of them.

Jeffery Self: 58:32

I bet you do.

Jason Blitman: 58:33

what are you reading?

Jeffery Self: 58:35

I am reading I literally am so obsessed with it. I'm not done yet. I only, I'm like savoring it, but I'm reading the love of my life, and I'm sure hopefully people haven't been obsessively talking about this on here, but it is, Edmund White's work, right? It's I'm long time fan. Huge fan. I don't remember when I first discovered his stuff. I think weirdly, the first one I ever read. No, that's not true, I guess was probably boy's own story, which is like my least favorite. But

Jason Blitman: 59:07

okay.

Jeffery Self: 59:09

it's

Jason Blitman: 59:09

We're allowed to have a least

Jeffery Self: 59:10

I don't care about like someone's childhood as somebody literally just wrote a book that talks about his childhood, but I,

Jason Blitman: 59:16

But it's about you, Jeffrey.

Jeffery Self: 59:17

Yeah. But I, but I've got very obsessed with his stuff and weirdly, I think my favorite is one of his lesser known books, I think. But it's our Own Boy, is that what it's called? Yeah, something like that. It's over here somewhere. It's so I can look at that all day. It's so good. And then I love his first memoir, which is called City Boy and it's excellent. And then, look how many fucking books this guy has written. Holy

Jason Blitman: 59:42

Oh wow.

Jeffery Self: 59:43

shit, I know. I. I really wanna know him and I don't know, maybe I'm gonna, I'm just gonna put it out in the universe. I've been doing that. But what is the one that really our young man, it's great, it's so sexy and his books are just beautifully sexy. He famously, literally wrote the joy of gay sex. Book. I think he, I don't think he was credited, but he literally wrote the book on gay sex, which is hilarious. And this new memoir is, it's called a Sex Memoir is so good in that it literally just goes through all the men. He's either had a fascinating fuck with or fallen in love with, or had a long-term relationship with or briefly dated it is, and he just writes so. Beautifully and hilariously and poignantly and it's just, also he's a person who, he's in his eighties was, is there pre aids and post aids and it's a fa in all around New York City and around the world. And it's just such a fascinating and cozy read. It's just so I'm like. It hit me this morning. I was reading it because I only have 30 pages left, but I was like, oh fuck, this is gonna be over soon. And I am so sad and I love that feeling with a book. It's my favorite feeling when you're just like, oh, I don't want this to ever end. And I I think always feel that way with his work. And luckily he's written, a bajillion books and they're great rereads.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:07

I forget books once I finish reading them. And so you can, you could basically re I could reread all of them from beginning to end.

Jeffery Self: 1:01:16

I do. I'm not a huge reread. I have a handful of audio books that I re listen to, like I, I listen to, which is here. It's that the Tennessee Williams John Lar book. Have you ever read that?

Jason Blitman: 1:01:31

no.

Jeffery Self: 1:01:32

unbelievable. It's so dense. But the audio book is read by Elizabeth Ashley. It is the best time you'll ever have in your life.

Jason Blitman: 1:01:43

I think I saw Elizabeth Ashley in August, oage County.

Jeffery Self: 1:01:50

Did you I don't know about that. Did she do it? Look it up because I know Elle Parsons did it. Is that what you're thinking? Or Felicia Rashad did it.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:00

I saw both of them.

Jeffery Self: 1:02:02

I saw, I always saw the original lady Deanna Dunnigan, who's unbelievable and.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:08

Ashley played Maddie Faye the sister.

Jeffery Self: 1:02:11

That's right. That's right. She replaced brilliant. Ran Rondy Reed. Yeah. Rondy Reed. I love that play. I'm very obsessed with that play. I think I talk about it in my

Jason Blitman: 1:02:20

it comes up multiple times in the books.

Jeffery Self: 1:02:22

I do. I'm pretty obsessed. I'm pretty obsessed with it. It's unbelievable. I heard there's a possible Broadway revival of that happening they've been talking about for years, and I. I heard the person that was supposed to be doing it, and I really wanted it, but we'll see if that happens. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna start any gossip, but it's Kathy Rigby. It's Kathy Rigby.

Jason Blitman: 1:02:43

She could do anything. She could do

Jeffery Self: 1:02:47

I want her performing August Hostage County next to that LA Fitness in, in la, California

Jason Blitman: 1:02:52

No. You know who's starring in it next summer at gon is Sally Struthers.

Jeffery Self: 1:02:57

Is that true? No, you're making it up. No.'cause she's always telling other, this is always at a gun. Quit Playhouse. You're right. You know who was there this summer was Kathleen Turner. And who's in in in little night music

Jason Blitman: 1:03:07

Yes.

Jeffery Self: 1:03:07

Playhouse.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:08

Knew I could make that joke to you, and you would understand why I was saying it, because Sally Struthers does every single show at a gun playhouse no matter what.

Jeffery Self: 1:03:15

she does. And is she afraid of yours?

Jason Blitman: 1:03:18

No.

Jeffery Self: 1:03:19

I was gonna say'cause I was gonna I don't know her either, but I was actually, I went to a game night at her house once, but I don't know her. I, and I met her. She didn't play the game. She was like in the other room. It was very weird. But I she did get a DUI when she was doing nine to five at the playhouse.

Jason Blitman: 1:03:32

Oh my God, Sally,

Jeffery Self: 1:03:34

Sally,

Jason Blitman: 1:03:34

listen, you gotta have

Jeffery Self: 1:03:36

honey, if you're at a, if you're at a gum quit for this summer, why not?

Jason Blitman: 1:03:40

right? When she got pulled over, they were like, oh my God, Sally, how you doing? How are the kids?

Jeffery Self: 1:03:44

mean, It is weird. She's not we haven't had a, like how we give these people like these renaissance moments. Like I feel like Sally Swift is very due, that type of, she's not like Betty White old yet, but like she's due something like that.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:00

She just did this TV show with Ted Danson on

Jeffery Self: 1:04:04

Oh, she's on that. Oh, I'm happy to hear that. Oh, good.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:07

And she was great that I, yeah, I was very happy to see her do that. I saw her in the national tour of Greece in 1994.

Jeffery Self: 1:04:14

saw her in Greece as

Jason Blitman: 1:04:15

I saw her play Miss Hannigan in the national tour of Annie.

Jeffery Self: 1:04:19

Never gotten to see that. Have you ever gotten to see her do Dolly Levi? Because she's been doing that for fucking

Jason Blitman: 1:04:23

N no, but I'm pretty sure she was doing it in Florida at some point when I was growing up. It

Jeffery Self: 1:04:28

guar guarantee it.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:29

yes she did the circuit.

Jeffery Self: 1:04:32

Oh yeah. Oh, a hundred percent.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:35

We've brought up your book multiple times. You've never once said the name, which is

Jeffery Self: 1:04:38

oh, that's true. So I have it self-sabotage.

Jason Blitman: 1:04:41

This has to have been sitting in your brain for your whole life. The title?

Jeffery Self: 1:04:48

well, I. Yes. I've in the past done I did I used to do I don't wanna say standup'cause it wasn't really standup, but like one man shows, so much worse than standup and much trashier. And I did one directed by Michael Arden actually that was called Self-Indulgence. And so I was no stranger to using my name for a cheap title, but. As I was writing this book, and when I sold like the book proposal, it wasn't called this, I didn't really have a title. And then as I was writing it, I was like, wow, every element about this in my life and my choices are usually some form of self-sabotage. So it was a really good fit. So it actually, it was like, a safe bet of a title, but also it was like, oh no, this is actually what the book is about.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:42

Yeah. That's helpful.

Jeffery Self: 1:05:43

It's good when the title is good. Like

Jason Blitman: 1:05:46

When it tells you what you're about to read. But you have an endless Well, I'm looking forward to over the next 30 years of your career.

Jeffery Self: 1:05:55

I think I would like to do that.

Jason Blitman: 1:05:56

Self-awareness,

Jeffery Self: 1:05:58

yeah. Self-destruction.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:00

by myself.

Jeffery Self: 1:06:01

Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:03

I couldn't help myself.

Jeffery Self: 1:06:04

Self annihilation. It's all mostly negative. But

Jason Blitman: 1:06:08

No, I'm glass half full. Jeffrey has to win.

Jeffery Self: 1:06:12

Maybe one day in my nineties there'll be like self-realization.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:16

Oh, yes. We're going on a journey here.

Jeffery Self: 1:06:19

going on a journey. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:22

One story in your book that I did read from beginning to end I. I started the story, I pulled this out of my closet deep inside my closet that I've never shared with anyone. Then I finish the story and realize oh, this is gonna maybe be, bring out more emotions than not. But there are so many things about us as I'm learning about you, that we are the same. And this is one of the ways,

Jeffery Self: 1:06:48

Okay. Oh my god. I had an autographed picture of Gary Beach. Oh, that's so Gary. Oh, that's beautiful.

Jason Blitman: 1:06:56

I sent him a letter.

Jeffery Self: 1:06:58

Did you? Oh my God. He didn't send me a fucking picture.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:00

Because I sent a self-addressed, stamped envelope and requested a signed headshot.

Jeffery Self: 1:07:05

There you go. You knew what you wanted. What was your, Gary, be your intro to Gary Beach? Was it producers? Was it beauty and the bees? Do you remember what was

Jason Blitman: 1:07:14

the producers. I saw him in La

Jeffery Self: 1:07:17

lage? Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:07:19

and then of course going, in the early days of internet doing the re Oh, you know what, no, I saw him in the National Tour of Beauty and the Beast.

Jeffery Self: 1:07:27

Yeah,

Jason Blitman: 1:07:28

and a couple other people from the original cast did the tour. So that was my introduction and it was among the earlier national tours that I saw. And so it. I was spoiled that a few people from the original company would do the tour.

Jeffery Self: 1:07:43

That's so indicative of him as well in that and I as you know from reading the story in the book, he was a very big part of my early twenties and I wrote him a fan letter and we became really close friends and he was very much a mentor and Godfathery figure to me and, I talked about in the book, and I and it was impossible to talk about him without, but he was so like old showbiz, like old school showbiz in that, like in that Ethel Merman, Mary Martin kind of tradition of he would do a fucking Broadway show and then go out on the road with it. And that's that was so I feel like one of the last of that type of. Of era and he would, he, went and did, the producers fucking everywhere and like he went out on the national tour of Spam a lot after winning a Tony Award for the producers, just this. This type of idea. And I think it was really important to him.'cause I think, he grew up in outside DC and saw so many of those tours come to the Kennedy Center and that hub of culture these days. And, and I think was life changing for him. And so I, that was a big thing for him that would, you know, about going out on the road and doing these shows. And oh, that's so cool. I he's, as from reading, he was one of the most important people in my life ever. So I love him a lot. I miss him very much.

Jason Blitman: 1:08:56

You are one of the very few people who has ever seen. One

Jeffery Self: 1:09:01

love that.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:02

I may or may not have a folder full of them.

Jeffery Self: 1:09:05

I love that. Oh, that's so lovely.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:09

My nerd, the nerdy theater kid in Florida who was like, dear so and

Jeffery Self: 1:09:13

We're in

Jason Blitman: 1:09:13

a sign. Headshot, a suburb before Lauderdale.

Jeffery Self: 1:09:16

Okay. Gary did because they lived in Florida for a while and he did post like him retiring from Broadway. He did. I think he did. Hello? Dolly it the ju Jupiter. Yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:28

Yeah.

Jeffery Self: 1:09:28

He did it a couple times, but I think he did it with Vicky Lewis there. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:36

My high school chemistry teacher has season tickets

Jeffery Self: 1:09:39

That place is still there.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:41

it is

Jeffery Self: 1:09:42

Great. I'm happy to hear.

Jason Blitman: 1:09:44

so funny. If we ever, if I, if you were to ever invite me over for a drink, you, and if you lose, if the J goes missing on the wall or if that Rosie O'Donnell Barbie doll goes missing, it was probably me.

Jeffery Self: 1:09:58

up there. That's not just Ro you see what this is, right? We have Rosie, obviously, we have Bette, obviously in her mermaid costume. And most importantly we have Whoopi, and this is her Star Trek doll. But I like to keep Whoopi and Rosie next to each other.'cause they don't really each other in real life, but I, in my house, they get along. B Midler keeps them in line. And I like to think of that as reality. And

Jason Blitman: 1:10:26

That's the beauty of dolls. We could do whatever we want.

Jeffery Self: 1:10:30

yes as a aging gay man who's just dusting his Rosie O'Donnell doll. Yes, it's yeah, not not a great sign of my mental health, but hey, here we are.

Jason Blitman: 1:10:38

My husband and I were in a thrift store not that long ago, and there I saw the rosy plush, like in

Jeffery Self: 1:10:45

Oh

Jason Blitman: 1:10:46

I was like. How weird would it be if I bought this? Would you

Jeffery Self: 1:10:50

I would've bought it on the

Jason Blitman: 1:10:51

to me?

Jeffery Self: 1:10:52

On the spot. We, every year my husband has to get he lets me pick, but we choose one of these three to go on top of the Christmas tree every year. This year.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:00

do you choose?

Jeffery Self: 1:11:01

I just pick my, it's my mood. I think. Was it be this year? No, it was Whoopi this year. It was Whoopi this year. But yeah, it's whoopi's harder of all these dolls because she's very top heavy and'cause of this hat is quite heavy.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:15

You need to give her like a big dress or something. A big

Jeffery Self: 1:11:17

I don't, I'm, I don't think I'm at the level of unhinged aging gay man that I'm making clo custom clothes for my dolls, but I'm close.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:26

yet,

Jeffery Self: 1:11:27

We're getting there.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:28

self-awareness.

Jeffery Self: 1:11:30

yeah.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:30

Jeffrey, I feel like I could talk to you all day,

Jeffery Self: 1:11:33

Same. It's just so lovely.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:35

so lovely.

Jeffery Self: 1:11:36

Lovely to talk to you. Um,

Jason Blitman: 1:11:38

To talk to you. Everyone go by. Self-sabotage.

Jeffery Self: 1:11:40

Thanks. Yes, go buy my book. Thank you. And

Jason Blitman: 1:11:43

Just buy

Jeffery Self: 1:11:43

audio or

Jason Blitman: 1:11:44

don't even, or buy the audio book.

Jeffery Self: 1:11:47

I read it and yeah, buy it. Maybe buy a couple and give'em to friends that are their own worst enemies.

Jason Blitman: 1:11:54

It's such a good gift we love.

Jeffery Self: 1:11:56

Um, thank you so much for having me and, uh, long lived. Kathy Rigby.

1:12:00

Thank you, Sean. Thank you Jeffrey. Everyone make sure to go check out Open Heaven by Sean Hewitt and Self-Sabotage by Jeffrey Self. Thank you all so much for being here. Have a wonderful rest of your week. Bye.