Gwen Cooper on "Diary of a South Beach Party Girl"

Miami native Gwen Cooper transformed herself from a bookish, nice Jewish girl to a wild nightlife queen when she moved to South Beach, a neighborhood that had just exploded into a hipster destination. It's the same journey undertaken by the heroine of her debut novel, Diary of a South Beach Party Girl, which chronicles with a clear eye and ready wit the glamorous life of people who are always on the guest list and always have the best drugs. The racy book is rapidly climbing the bestseller charts, and will be de rigueur reading on all the best beaches this summer. But where does reality end and fiction begin? Bay Windows set out to peek behind the velvet rope and find out.

Q: I apologize, I'm a little late. Can we say I'm fashionably late?
A: I think to be fashionable you have to call an hour from now. Within five minutes, you're just late.

Q: Okay. Well I'm wearing stiletto heels, does that help?
A: That might be too much information.

Q: Actually, you're kind of a glamour queen, I should ask what you're wearing.
A: Not at 10 in the morning you shouldn't. I have on sweats and a tank top. This isn't going to be a porn-y call, is it?

Q: Do you want it to be?
A: [laughs]

Q: You're getting very positive reactions to the book. It must feel terrific.
A: It does. When you're writing a book it's just a Word document on your computer for so long, and it seems odd that now it's out there and people are reading it. But it's a lot of fun.

Q: Did you think it would be such a hit?
A: No. You hope. You have wild fantasies of swooping into your high school reunion and making everyone sick, but you don't expect it.

Q: Why do you think it's struck a chord?
A: I think the South Beach setting is a huge hook. It's a fascinating place and so little has been written about it. And I like to think the story of the main character and her friends has a universal appeal, so even if you're not in love with Miami or you can't relate to the setting, there are things in the characters that everyone can relate to.

Q: They go through things that most young people go through, it's just a little more exciting when it happens in South Beach.
A: Yeah, it's the combination of the glamour and mystique of the craziness of the South Beach setting, along with the stuff you go through in your 20s and 30s. Getting your career on track and finding your relationships, and figuring out what your life as a grownup is supposed to look like.

Q: And what it looks like in a coke mirror.
A: In this case, yes. [laughs] It's an experimental process.

Q: If you don't experiment, you don't know.
A: Exactly.

Q: I'm sure everyone asks you this, but how autobiographical is the book?
A: I think it's a very accurate portrait of what South Beach was like at the time. I can't say it's a very strict retelling of my own life story. But I do think it represents the sum total of what I saw and experienced while living there.

Q: You're being a little mum on the details.
Damn it, I would be a lousy politician. You're not supposed to see that I didn't answer the question! You know, when you write a novel, you want people to get caught up in the story. You want them to believe in the characters and the truth of the story. So to go back over it and say, this totally happened but that is exaggerated and this didn't happen at all ... that would ruin suspension of disbelief. So I don't get too specific.

Q: Hmm, I think you're better at politics than you think.
A: And that whole Iraq thing, by the way? Totally true. They totally had weapons.

Q: I was having cocktails with Saddam ... I always drank for free in Baghdad...
A: That would be kind of awesome, actually. A spin off book. The South Beach party girl goes to the Middle East.

Q: As long as it has a happy ending.
A: Well, the jury's still out on that.

Q: What kind of feedback have you heard from people from South Beach, both your friends and others who were there?
A: Overall the response has been very positive. This sounds so immodest, but the phrase I keep hearing is, "You nailed it." There are some people who have declined to be happy that someone finally published a novel about South Beach, but maybe they'll publish their own novels. The one thing that nobody has said is that it is not a reflection of what South Beach was like at the time, and that is the one criticism that would be painful to hear. So that's gratifying.

Q: I was surprised to learn how many changes South Beach has gone through in so little time.
A: Miami Beach is in constant evolution. You know the Zen koan about how you can never step in the same river twice? It's hard to go back to the same South Beach. Just in the two decades from when I was growing up to now, the changes have been amazing. So it's a subject I would like to revisit. It's my home town. And there aren't many books set there, and most of them are crime novels. Nothing against Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard, they're wonderful writers, but the main reason I started the book was the sense that there were other stories to tell about Miami.

Q: But you live in New York now, right? Was that a big adjustment?
A: It was hard to get used to paying for things! They have this quaint custom of having to give money at the door to get into a club. That was the kind of thing I thought had nothing to do with me! But it's been great. I don't know if I would have written the novel if I had stayed in Miami, because what made me start thinking about it was the differences between my life now and my life then. In the best of all possible worlds, I would have a home in both towns.

Q: Sounds like you're on the way.
A: From your lips to God's ears, as my mother would say.

Q: Are you working on another book?
A: It's in the preliminary stages. I'm doing research for my second novel. It's about the Miami of the 1980s, which was a very interesting time. Eighty-five percent of all cocaine in the United States was coming through Miami then. So it was a time of immense change that really made Miami an international city. I'm envisioning The Great Gatsby meets Scarface. It's set against that backdrop but it's a love story.

Q: Do you think you'll ever chronicle New York City?
A: Possibly. It has to grow out of the story more than the location. The thing about Miami is that the stories are really linked to the location. There's not that feeling with New York. New York is not exactly virgin territory for writers. I haven't yet found that really compelling New York story.

Q: Any parting advice for people heading out for a wild summer weekend, whether in Miami or Provincetown or wherever?
A: I always say bring sunglasses, your most fabulous clubwear, a case of PartySmart, and the number of a good bail bondsman. It's not really a party if you don't have to call the bondsman.

Q: Your parents are going to love this.
A: You know, the first review was in Cosmopolitan, and they said the book is "as captivating as it is alarming." My mother said, "Should I be alarmed?" I said, "You should have been alarmed 10 years ago." Now, not so much. But my parents are really thrilled that I've written a book and they're proud of me. My mother and I did have a talk. Because the first thing she wanted to know was how much of it is true. So I told her, here's how you can recognize what's made up: if it upsets you, I made it up. It's a policy that's working well for us.

Q: Oh yeah, you should go into politics.
A: Well, this book has probably ruined any future in politics.

Q: I don't know, the political world is full of scandals.
A: That's true. Look at Bush. He did a lot of cocaine and he managed.

Q: And all your scandals are out in the open. So you have my vote. Best beach read and Commander in Chief.
A: I frankly think if I were running things, things would be a whole lot better.

Q: And Al Gore went pretty far on a much less exciting book.
A: Right. Maybe he would have swept the 2000 election with a more scandalous book.