The Story Behind In the Pink
By Nicholas Garnett
The inspiration for my memoir, IN THE PINK, came pretty easily. Its publication did not.
As the only straight, married guy thoroughly immersed in the gay circuit-party
scene of the 90s (if there were others, I never met them), it occurred to me
that I had a unique story to tell. By the time my marriage had ended in
divorce, and I had relocated from Washington, D.C. to Miami Beach in 2004 to
start a new life, I had written a few chapters of what I imagined would be a
scandalous, behind-the-scenes view of a decadent lifestyle. I began to take
writing workshops, and the more I took, the more I wrote: scene after
scene—vivid and compelling—according to the feedback I was getting.
In 2006, I spent the summer in Provincetown, Massachusetts, a long-time
mecca for artists and writers. The apartment just above mine happened to be
rented by a prominent writer who had just published his memoir. One day, I
finally got up the nerve to ask him if he would take a look at what I’d
written. I spent much of the next couple of days in anticipatory agony, peering
thorough my venetian blinds as he paced back and forth along the walkway that
ran outside our units reading my story, the manuscript in one hand, a cigarette
in the other. Finally, he invited me up to his place. He handed me a cocktail,
lit up a joint and handed me that, too.
He said, “I’ve got some good news, and some bad news.”
He didn’t ask me which I wanted to hear first.
“Good news is,” he said, “you can write.” He motioned for me to hand him the
joint. I did, and he took a toke, as if to prepare himself for what was coming
next. “But you’re not a writer.”
Ouch.
He went on the explain that while I obviously had a knack for description
and rendering scenes, he felt detached from the story because he didn’t have a
sense of who was writing it, or why. “A reporter can get away with just the
facts,” he said, “a writer can’t.” I was going to have to figure out a way to
insert my myself into the story, he said. And to do that, I would have to
figure out what it meant to me.
I hated that advice. Following it would mean doing what didn’t come
naturally to me: introspection. And it would also take what I didn’t want to
give: time. Time to be able to look back at what happened, to put it in some
context. That process took me years and an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing
(the memoir was my thesis) to accomplish. Gradually, I began to see that, while
the decadent behavior and outrageous events depicted in my memoir were unusual,
the story was universal: one guy’s search to find his place in the world. Once
I figured that out, things began to make sense and the story began to take
shape. I cut thousands of words and dozens of scenes—some of them pretty damn
good—that were repetitive or irrelevant, or both.
By 2011, I had finished my M.F.A. and produced a story that proved, at least
to myself, that I had progressed beyond someone who could write. I had become a
writer. A literary agent agreed with me. She shopped the story to several
editors and here’s what happened next. Nothing. Universal theme
notwithstanding, no publisher was ready to take on a story about a straight
guy’s immersion into gay party culture. As the years and the rejections piled up,
I began to give up.
The only shred of hope I clung to was that the digital version of my memoir,
which had been posted by the university in an on-line repository along with all
sorts of other Master and Doctoral theses, was kind of a hit. Each month, I’d
receive a report telling me that 15 or 20 (on a good month, 30 or 40) copies of
my thesis had been downloaded. I wasn’t told who had requested it or why, but I
was told where. And “where” included some places I would never have expected.
Somehow, and for reasons I couldn’t fathom, people living in Mumbai, Moscow,
Barcelona, Teheran, Hong Kong, Saigon, Amsterdam, Finland, Singapore, Nairobi,
Jakarta, several cities in Germany, Poland and Romania had managed to find and
download my story. Maybe my story was universal.
In December of 2020, the monthly report showed that I had accumulated over
3,000 downloads. After 10 years of trying without success to get the story
published, and with no prospects on the horizon, I threw in the towel. On
December 11, 2020, here’s what I posted to Facebook: “Looks like I created
a whole new literary category: international non seller. I've decided to go all
in. If you're looking to curl up with a good book over the holidays, join
readers from all over the world and download mine. What the hell--it's free.
And if you like anything about it (I mean anything: the formatting, the font)
please let me know. I could use a little encouragement right about now.”
A few days later, a professor in my M.F.A. program who had seen my post asked
to take a look at the manuscript. He had someone he wanted to run it by. That
“someone” was a publisher. Fifteen years after I started writing it, ten years
after I thought I’d finished it, and a few weeks after I’d given up on it, I
received an offer to publish IN THE PINK.
What’s the message here? I have no idea. The odd chain of events that
resulted in the publication of my memoir could have just as easily happened
five years ago. Or never. All I can say is that I’m sure it would never have
happened at all but for the guidance I got that afternoon in Provincetown back
in 2006. Sometimes, the best advice is precisely the kind you don’t want to
receive.
“In the Pink is a the story of a singular life, told coolly and cleanly, with admirable introspection. If I felt, at times, that Nicholas Garnett occupied an alternative universe — well, he did and I am glad that he decided to chronicle it with a refreshing lack of judgment for his fellow travelers — and himself.“—Laura Lippman, author of DREAM GIRL, LADY IN THE LAKE, and the Tess Monaghan series.
“By turns outrageous, hilarious, and truly moving, this unflinching chronicle of a profoundly mismatched straight couple’s foray into the gay party and power circuit sets a new standard for the tale of wretched excess, and provides much-needed perspective along the way. Nicholas Garnett has–no lie–produced a book like none other.”—Les Standiford, New York Times bestselling author of LAST TRAIN TO PARADISE and BRINGING ADAM HOME.
“I’ve just finished reading Nicholas Garnett’s electrifying memoir In the Pink, and now I need to catch my breath and recover. And then I’m going to read it again. Here is a gritty and lyrical portrait of what it’s like living life way out there on the edge, spinning out of control, and staring into the abyss. Astonishing and slightly terrifying.”—John Dufresne, author of LOUISIANA POWER & LIGHT and REQUIEM, MASS.
“Fasten your seat belts and take this ride through the A-list, drug-fueled, sex-centric circuit party scene of the 1990’s with Nicholas Garnett. Like Bill Clegg’s memoir PORTRAIT OF AN ADDICT AS A YOUNG MAN and David Carr’s NIGHT OF THE GUN, In the Pink will terrify, startle, and ultimately make you sigh with relief over Garnett’s unflinching look at this world and his place in it.”—Ann Hood, New York Times bestselling author of COMFORT: A JOURNEY THROUGH GRIEF and THE KNITTING CIRCLE.
“In the Pink might read like one man’s heady quest to become the gayest straight man in America. But look deeper and it’s your story, what you’ve done to hang on to love, to live beyond labels while searching for your own, to find yourself after decades of getting so lost. Do yourself a favor: buy this book. Read it now.”—Anjanette Delgado, author of THE CLAIRVOYANT OF CALLE OCHO.
Book Information
Release Date: October 18, 2021
Publisher: MidTown Publishing
Soft Cover: ISBN: 978-1626770331; 276 pages; $22.99
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3zxQhYb
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3q0YDV0
Nicholas Garnett received his MFA in Creative Writing from Florida International University. He has taught creative writing at FIU, the Miami Book Fair, and Writing Class Radio. Garnett is also a freelance editor and co-producer of the Miami-based live storytelling series, Lip Service: True Stories Out Loud. He is a recipient of residencies from the Vermont Studio Center and the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and fellowships to the Norman Mailer Art Colony and Writers in Paradise. His writing has appeared, among other places, in Salon.com, Truehumor.com, Sundress Publication’s “Best of the Net” and Cleis Press’s Best Sex Writing.
His memoir, In the Pink, is forthcoming from MidTown Publishing in January 2022.
You can visit his website at www.nicholasgarnett.com or connect with him on Twitter and Facebook.
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