“California Dreamers” Author Mark Abramson Sets Stories in the Castro

Interview by Wendy Oakes

Local author Mark Abramson’s latest novel continues the saga of protagonist Tim Snow, a waiter on Market Street who often frequents the Castro bar scene, notably the Edge and Badlands. In California Dreamers, Snow takes a cutting-edge HIV drug treatment.

Wendy:

The latest book in your ‘Beach Reading Series’ is due out in June. Would you talk a bit about California Dreamers?

Mark:

It’s officially out June 1st, but it got out a little early. Amazon.com has already sold out of it. Books Inc. will have some on their shelf now, and they have another 60 on order, so they’ll have plenty. It’s the sixth book in my series - “The Beach Reading Series.” All of them are set in the Castro. The main character, Tim Snow, is a waiter in a fictional restaurant on Castro Street. I use a lot of real places, so when he gets off work he goes to The Edge or Badlands. There are a lot of real people in the neighborhood that pop up in the books too - not as main characters, but they come in to eat, or he runs across them - people like Donna Sachet. In the first book - Beach Reading, there were cameos by Jan Wahl, Carol Doda, and Willie Brown, and a few others. Basically it’s Tim, and by the end of the second book he has a pretty steady boyfriend, and his Aunt Ruth comes out to visit, and she ends up moving to the Castro. His bosses are an elderly gay couple - Arturo and Arty. They own the restaurant on Castro Street, and they’re also his landlords. Arty’s a retired drag showgirl from Finnochio’s. Throughout the series he’s always trying to revive his career. He decides that since nobody else wants to hire him, he’ll start doing cabaret brunch at the restaurant. “And we’ll give Donna Sachet, Harry Denton, and all those queens a run for their money,” he says. They’re all fun characters for me to write. People always ask, “Who are the characters based on?” Nobody fictional is based on any one person; they’re bits and pieces of all sorts of people I’ve known. I was a bartender on Castro Street for many years and I’d just overhear things all the time. It’s fun to overhear a funny story and be able to put it into a characters mouth.

Wendy:

Tim Snow is psychic of course, and this is also a mystery...

Mark:

They’re not ‘for mystery purists’ mysteries, but each book has some mysterious things that go on. His grandmother was a psychic, and he’s inherited some of her abilities. I call him a reluctant psychic. He doesn’t really want to be bothered by all of it, but he has dreams that come true.

In California Dreamers he’s taking a new drug for HIV. I wanted to use the drug Sustiva, ‘cause that’s a real drug, and I know lots of people are taking [it]. Of course, my editor said. “You can’t do that; you have to get permission from the drug company”. I decided to change the name of the drug to Nutriva. It has all the same side effects, which are really intense dreams for most people. I was taking it when I wrote the first draft of this book. I was also doing Hep C treatment, so I was on Interferon and Ribavirin on top of all that. Of course, I couldn’t have any alcohol, but I felt like I was stoned all the time. It was fun to write about Tim being on this drug. He gets hooked up with all these other people with HIV who are really psychic. Then, this company gathers them once a week to put their abilities together. They dose them up with a little bit stronger dose of the drug, and put them into a trance, ostensibly so that they can predict, and prevent suicides off the Golden Gate Bridge. As the story goes on, they discover that there’s something else going on, and I don’t want to give it away, but there’s something sinister going on. While that’s happening, Arty’s career is building up and building up. And, Aunt Ruth, who has been a bartender at the restaurant, has married a very wealthy man down in Hillsborough. They’ve gone off on honeymoon, and come back, and she doesn’t want to work there anymore, but she still wants to be involved with all of their lives. Now she’s busy at her new husband’s estate. His main housekeeper and gardener were a couple who left, and she’s trying to get the running of the household in order, and there are things that are very strange going on there too. Of course, it all ties together at the end that the oddities at the estate down in Hillsborough are connected with what Tim’s doing, and also Arty has a near death experience at the restaurant, and his life is saved at the last minute by someone who..Oh, I can’t tell you anymore!!

Wendy:

Tell me about your upcoming events. First, for California Dreamers, you have a reading at Books Inc., and then you have a reception at Cafe Flore. Is that the same night?

Mark:

Yes. June 22nd, the Friday of Pride weekend, I’ll be at Books Inc. at 7:30, and afterward we’ll go across the street to Cafe Flore and have a reception. And, we’re gonna call it my birthday party - my birthday’s on Monday. I’ve done several [readings] there, and a couple of times they’ve fallen on my birthday. A couple of years ago - and it was also on Pride weekend - Sharon McKnight was in town, and she came and sang, and Donna Sachet was there and sang. This year I invited Mark Sargent, who does Ethel Merman. I told him that he’s got a little cameo in this book, so hopefully he’ll show up. And I invited Gladys Bumps, who’s in the last book and also mentioned in this one, and Donna Sachet, who’s been in them all.

Wendy:

Aside from The Beach Reading Series, you’ll be having an event at the MCC, called ‘The Biggest Quake’.

Mark:

Kirk Read got together some of the most interesting, diverse, and wonderful writers, and we’ve been meeting up every two weeks this spring, and workshopping together. We’re all writing about how the AIDS epidemic affected San Francisco, but it’s broader than that, because I’ve been here 37 years - since ‘75. I think Brontez is only in his twenties, and Kirk is only in his thirties, so people’s perspectives are different. There are people that have never known what it was like before HIV and AIDS. They’ve always had it in their lives. Yesterday, at my house, when we all got together, it was the first time that we each brought something in that we’d be reading on the nights of the event, and read it to the group. Some of these readings were so hysterically funny - wicked funny. And some are gonna be so touching, but sometimes in a very sweet way, not necessarily in a sad way. But of course, that’s gonna come up too, because of what went on. The three nights - each night will be different, but it will be all eight of us each night. I’m putting together some short time capsules about things that I remember that went on in the ‘80s. As a bartender, I was working both on Castro Street, and South of Market, at The Eagle during those years - the beginning of it, There are some amazing stories - not all morbid, because there was a lot that we did to survive. There were a lot of things that we did to keep going.

Mark Abramson will be reading from California Dreamers at Books Inc. (2275 Market Street) on Friday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.

The Biggest Quake takes place at the Metropolitan Community Church on June 14, 15, and 16 at 7pm. All shows are free.

Copyright 2012 Castro Courier