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221 Noël Alu­ mit God fuck­ ing dam­ mit,” yells Noël Alu­ mit, wav­ ing ­ around a let­ ter from his doc­ tor. “I have to go on cho­ les­ te­ rol med­ i­ ca­ tion.” He crum­ ples up the let­ ter and ­ throws it ­ across the room. “I lost fif­ teen­ pounds and gave up sugar so I ­ wouldn’t have to go on med­ i­ ca­ tion. After all that work, I still have to go on it.” He ­ stands ­ quietly for sev­ eral sec­ onds, then sighs. “I don’t know how those ­ HIV-positive guys do it. Tak­ ing all sorts of meds. And here I am quib­ bling about tak­ ing some­ thing for my cho­ les­ te­ rol.” He oc­ cu­ pies a small apart­ ment, ­ filled with books and art. He lives in Sil­ ver­ lake, a ­ trendy part of Los An­ geles. “It ­ wasn’t al­ ways ­ trendy,” he says. “I grew up ­ around here. I ­ stayed here be­ cause it was af­ ford­ able then—with lots of art­ ists and gay peo­ ple and peo­ ple of color. Then the gay peo­ ple died. Then the brown peo­ ple were ­ bought out. Then the art­ ists were re­ placed by peo­ ple who man­ aged the art­ ists . . . I’m get­ ting­ worked up—” He ­ abruptly stops talk­ ing. He pulls out a cush­ ion and sits ­ quietly on the floor. He med­ i­ tates for ­ nearly ­ twenty min­ utes. I sit there and look­ around. Bud­ dhist icons ­ spread here and there. I no­ tice a red pro­ tec­ tion cord ­ around his neck. He looks up and says, “I was ­ raised Cath­ o­ lic, but Bud­ dhism seems to fit me bet­ ter.” Van­ ity Fai­ rey Inter­ views Writer Noël Alu­ mit Noël Alumit 222 Noël Alu­ mit seems to be at a cross­ roads. Last year, he won the James Dug­ gins Prize, an award re­ served for writ­ ers in “mid-career.” He’s­ forty-three years old and pon­ der­ ing the fu­ ture. He in­ vites me to sit on the floor with him. I sit down and we talk books, writ­ ing, and plans. j Van­ ity Fai­ rey: Who was the first au­ thor to make an im­ pres­ sion on you? Noël Alu­ mit: I’d have to say Shel Sil­ ver­ stein. His ­ children’s book The Giv­ ing Tree made my heart cry. It was a story about a boy’s re­ la­ tion­ ship with this tree. The Tree loved the boy ­ dearly. As the boy grew, he kept want­ ing and need­ ing ­ things. The Tree did its best to pro­ vide for him, even when the boy grew to be an old man. The Tree was still there for him. I was only a lit­ tle kid, but I re­ mem­ ber that story truly mov­ ing me. I still think about it. ­ That’s how you know when a book is good. It makes a last­ ing im­ pres­ sion. VF: Did you read lots of books as a child? NA: Yeah, I guess more than most kids. I read a lot of books in comic book form—­ graphic nov­ els ­ they’re now ­ called. I read Dra­ cula, Fran­ ken­ stein, The In­ vis­ ible Man—books lit­ tle boys like to read. VF: Who was the first gay ­ writer to in­ flu­ ence you? NA: It was Arnie Kan­ tro­ witz. He wrote Under the Rain­ bow, a me­ moir about the gay ­ rights strug­ gle. I read it at the Echo Park ­ branch of the LA Pub­ lic Li­ brary. It was the first time I’d read of the gay ex­ pe­ ri­ ence. VF: Did you like it? NA: I did. That was prob­ ably the first time I was ­ really intro­ duced to the gay aes­ thetic. When I ­ picked up Under the Rain­ bow, I ­ didn’t know what it would be about, but I knew it was going to be queer­ friendly. Just from the title, I knew it was a play on Judy ­ Garland’s “Over the Rain­ bow.” Even then, I knew Judy Gar­ land was some­ how a gay icon. I was a lit­ tle un­ com­ fort­ able with it, too. Arnie Kan­ tro­ witz ­ talked about how he liked to knit, and I was...

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