IN THE PINK

In a drug-soaked memoir of the 1990s Washington, D.C., gay party circuit, a straight man discovers the limits of the high life.

Garnett writes that he grew up in a Greek American family, “swathed in an all-consuming and oppressive love in which I felt both nurtured and menaced.” In his early 30s, the author became intensely drawn to Rachael, a stylish and cynical bisexual woman whose friend group included a “thick slice of D.C.’s A-list gay men.” She proceeded to remake him into a fashionably “coiffed, manicured” escort to extravagant, druggy circuit parties that she described as “a Grateful Dead tour for gay men.” As Garnett formed a passionate connection with Rachael, he writes, he also became addicted to the attention of the trendy male partygoers—and to the drugs that Rachael supplied him. Soon, they were attending wild parties from Montreal to Mykonos, Provincetown to Rio de Janeiro. Stronger drugs and edgier sexual exploits were required to keep up the frenetic pace, he says, and he found that the risks and thrills that once drew him and Rachael together were now driving them apart. Garnett vividly describes the party scene of a specific time and place; one venue, for instance, is described as having “charged energy―manic, primal, and sexual―so strong it hummed through me like voltage.” The book’s portrayal of gay life feels a bit shallow and simplistic, with its hyperfocus on clubs and drugs, despite the fact that the author was dubbed “THE GAYEST STRAIGHT MAN IN AMERICA” by his friends. However, he describes himself with a great deal of honesty and sharp perception, as when he notes that in his youth, he had “the attributes of both the spoiled and the abused child: I lacked resilience and initiative yet had a strong sense of entitlement,” and in adulthood, he “had never really thought of myself as autonomous, someone who could strike out on his own.”

A colorful account of a couple’s immersion in a glamorous, decadent lifestyle.