The sophomore sixth

Young author Tom Dolby hit the gay literary scene with a bang in 2004. His debut novel, The Trouble Boy, was a rollicking, no-holds-barred story about being young and gay in New York City. The sexy and scathing book became a bestseller and earned comparisons to Less Than Zero and Bright Lights, Big City. In his follow up, The Sixth Form, just out from Kensington Press, Dolby has both regressed and matured; instead of exploring the crazy post-collegiate lifestyle, Dolby takes us to a New England prep school for a carefully modulated story of the friendship between a New York cool kid and a shy California boy. Complicating the erotic undercurrents between the pair is the interest of a young teacher who takes more than a healthy interest in the young men. Bay Windows spoke with Dolby from Long Island before he headed to California to begin promoting the novel.

Q: You'll be doing a book tour soon. Do you enjoy them?
A: I enjoy parts of it. It's a lot of logistics. But it's great to meet fans. The thing about that that's sort of difficult is that I don't have anything else to give. They tell me they read the book and then they have wonderful stories, and I feel like I should have something brilliant to impart to them. And I don't! I've spoken to other authors and this seems to be a universal thing.

Q: You must have been pleased at the reception of your first book.
A: Yeah, you don't know what's going to happen when you stat to write a book. I was really very pleased that it touched so many people, and people found things they could relate to in it.

Q: Hmm, there are things in there that I would hope people don't relate to!
A: Yeah, it's funny. Both of these books are about very specific things and experiences, but people pull out their own interpretations. They may not have been 22 and living in New York, or they didn't go to prep school, but everyone can relate to being in high school.

Q: So how personal is The Sixth Form?
A: Trouble Boy was very autobiographical. I distilled three years of living in New York, things that happened to me and to other people, and compressed it into a year-long story for the character. For Sixth Form it was mostly just using a familiar setting, not so much the situations. The Hannah character was completely created.

Q: I'm glad to hear that.
A: But certainly with the two boys, I took different parts of my own personality and figured out which was Ethan and which was Todd. So there are little bits of me in both of them.

Q: It's interesting that Sixth Form is a real change from Trouble Boy. It's not so fast and funny. It's very natural and meticulous.
A: It does move along at a slower pace. I think that just has to do with what the material lends itself to. They're at a boarding school, where time sort of stands still. I wanted to write something a little more meditative than Trouble Boy. I wanted to hit the pace that a 17-year-old's life really moves along.

Q: And I liked that it was very down to earth. No clich?s about boarding school kids killing themselves ...
A: I did think about those things, but not every gay kid at boarding school offs himself! Not every student teacher relationship ends in complete and total disaster.

Q: You write about Ethan and Todd with evident affection. Will you ever tell more stories about them?
A: If I did, they would have to be very different types of novels. They're at the end of an arc in their lives. They sort of had the wool pulled over their eyes and at the end they achieved some kind of enlightenment. But their world has informed another project I'm working on, which has teenaged characters. Writing from their perspective is fascinating because they're so in touch with what they want. And if it's at all possible, they'll do what they want. Unlike adults, who have more sense.

Q: It's easier to get those characters into trouble.
A: Yeah! Teens are pure id. They want it, they do it, so all kinds of interesting things can happen.

Q: As you get older, is harder to adopt the teen perspective?
A: It was at first, but I think we all can access that 17-year old part of ourselves.

Q: Can you tell any more about your next project?
A: I have two in the works. One is a young adult novel in New York City, that's the one with teen characters. The other one centers around a family in California. In both of my novels family has sort of been a satellite issue. But there's so much humor and possibilities with family, so that's what I want to explore with this book. Focus entirely on a family dynamic.

Q: That reminds me that I wish we got to see more of Todd's mother in Sixth Form.
A: It was fun writing her scenes. I've been writing versions of that character for years. People always think of parents as forbidding or taskmasters, so I love this idea of this mother who's on her own plane. And who really didn't care if her kid was gay. There are lots of novels with gay teenagers who are terrified of what their parents will think. But what if the mother welcomes it? You know that whenever Todd comes out to her, she'll be thrilled!

Q: In between your novels you co-edited an anthology about friendships between gay men and straight women. How did that come about?
A: My friend Melissa came up with that idea. It was an idea very dear to us. Given some of the characters in my books, it sort of makes sense.

Q: I was impressed with the range of experiences in that book. How did you find contributors?
A: Beg, borrow and steal! It was really a lot of begging. First we asked all our friends who are writers, then a lot of cold calling and emailing. We were very fortunate to get a good mix.