The novel has received positive reviews in the latest issues of Genre (like Dorothy Parker, Toby apparently has a vicious, but also vacuous, circle), Instinct (which generously compared it to Bonfire of the Vanities), and The Dallas Voice (according to the headline, I’m the new It Boy of gay literature…uh, okay).

I also learned that the Gay Men’s Book Group of Long Island will be reading The Trouble Boy for its May selection. Now, if every other gay men’s book group in the country decided to read it as well…

Over the weekend, I attended the March for Women’s Lives in Washington DC, an amazing political rally and march that supported women’s issues and women’s right to choice. There was a large GLBT contingent from the Human Rights Campaign and other groups, and wonderful signs like “Another Dyke Mom for Choice” and “Keep George Out of My Bush!” I couldn’t agree more.

In the morning, I stopped by Lambda Rising and Olsson’s Bookstore, two indie bookstores in the Dupont Circle area. The friendly staff at Lambda Rising said they’ve been selling a ton of copies and that the book will definitely be on their bestseller list next month.

I read at Cambridge’s Wordsworth Books last night to a standing room-only crowd. The audience, which ranged from undergrads to professors to new local fans who had already read the novel, was fantastic, incredibly responsive, and gleaned humor from the opening scenes that even I didn’t know was there. All in all, a rewarding end to my “solo tour.”

During the signing portion, a Boston friend of mine showed up with a stack of clippings: there were profiles of me and the event in The Boston Globe, Bay Windows, and In Newsweekly. The next morning I went to sign books at the Harvard Coop, where I bought a Harvard t-shirt in order to please a certain boyfriend of mine who went to that other school.

The most exciting part of the trip, though, was when I headed back to New York on a shuttle flight from Logan Airport. There was a man on the plane reading my novel! (Apparently some authors go through their entire careers and never see anyone reading their books.) When we were deplaning (yes, I’ve been on the road too long), I had to introduce myself; he said he had bought the book at the gay bookstore We Think The World of You, where I had signed a few copies the day before, and that a friend had recommended it to him.

This weekend, I made my midwest debut, aided by a profile in Chicago’s local gay paper The Windy City Times. At a Barnes & Noble on Friday night, I read to a good-sized crowd (25 people or so–not bad for a time slot when most gay men are still taking their disco naps). I decided to read about Toby’s obsession with Real World Guy, figuring that the crowd would appreciate the pop culture references. It went well, and I signed a number of copies for appreciative fans before making a brief stop by SideTrack with my friend Jay, who was the main reason I planned a tour stop in Chicago. On Friday, I also stopped by a number of other bookstores, including the fabulous Unabridged Books in the middle of Boystown–I enjoyed Unabridged so much that I had to come back the next day and do some browsing of my own.

The Trouble Boy is this month’s main selection of the InsightOut Book Club. I love the headline in the catalog: “A circle of young gay men search for love, sex, and fame in New York City…” It’s so…movie poster.

San Francisco’s 7×7 magazine has a nice mention of the book this month in its “Hot Picks” section. And New York’s H/X is running a profile of me and the book this week in its “Homo Bound” section. I really like that the writer, Sean Kennedy, managed to capture the tension between the lighter and darker sides of the novel.

Last night was my first New York bookstore appearance: I read to a crowd of about 50 people at Chelsea’s Barnes & Noble (most surreal moment: being met by the very nice Community Relations Manager and being asked, “Would you like to relax in the Green Room for a minute before starting?” Um…sure.). New Yorkers can be a tough crowd–you can bump into an author while getting your morning coffee here, so seeing one at a bookstore is no big deal–and I was worried that people weren’t getting into the reading, but then they all came up to get copies signed at the end, so I guess something went right! I also really enjoyed hearing from some of the guys in the audience who had already finished the novel. One said he thought the book was about “a love affair with New York,” which I thought was cool.

This week, the writer Abby Ehmann profiled me in a Q&A on the sexy website Eroszine.com, calling The Trouble Boy “a modern twist on the coming of age odyssey.”

This weekend, The Trouble Boy appeared on The San Francisco Chronicle bestseller list! The blurb calls it “A breezy, sexy ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ for Generation Y by an ex-San Francisco writer.” Yeah!

The New York Post ran a fierce article today called “Sinful Socialites” that has several column inches on The Trouble Boy as one of “a sudden spate of thinly veiled novels set in the rarified world of spoiled New York twentysomethings and the blind items that plague them.” I’m in the company of two other fabulously dishy roman a clefs: Plum Sykes’s Bergdorf Blondes and Jill Kargman and Carrie Doyle Karasyov’s The Right Address.

And Next magazine, the weekly gay bar rag, did a double-page Q&A spread on the book, entitled “He Loves Trouble.” In the article, I answer a number of questions about the novel, including how my friends feel about inspiring some of the characters in the book (they love it), the threat of HIV/AIDS (an important issue for me, both in the book and in life), and who would play Toby in the film version (Elijah Wood, anyone?).

Meanwhile, I’m gearing up for reading dates in New York, Chicago, and Boston. It also looks like I’ll be visiting Washington, DC for the Pro-Choice March for Women’s Lives on the weekend of April 24-25, and I’ll stop by as many bookstores as I can to sign stock.

The Trouble Boy is the “Bay Area Book of the Month” on the website of San Francisco’s Nob Hill Gazette. I’ve posted a few excerpts from the review.

Back to New York: DJ Chip Duckett’s Thursday night gay dance party Pop Rocks! celebrated The Trouble Boy tonight. Plaid, the club on 13th Street, was packed with adorable college-age kids (both boys and girls–a nice change) who enjoyed Chip’s incredibly danceable mix of pop music and the two-hour open bar. I wore a pink Polo shirt in honor of Jamie Weissman. I was exhausted from the three-cities-in-four-days schedule, but still managed to stick around ’til 1am, when my friends and I decided to call it a night. Highlight of the evening: my friend Ken’s new nameplate belt reading “MUNT” in silver block letters. You figure it out.