MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Imagine you're a struggling actor in New York City, fresh off getting rejected from every drama school you applied to. You do have a job at a scented candle shop, which helps pay the bills - barely. And it's boring. Then one day, your best friend invites you to a glam cocktail soiree where, during a bathroom break, you witness your fellow partygoers confront and murder would-be assailants. Yes, murder. It turns out you were being recruited to a top secret LGBTQ spy agency. That's the premise of the new book "The Tuxedo Society," written by Paul Rudnick, who is here. Paul Rudnick, welcome.
PAUL RUDNICK: Oh, thank you so much. That was the perfect setup.
KELLY: I am so glad. Well, people listening may already know who you are because of all of your work on films. You wrote - here's a partial list - "Sister Act," "The Stepford Wives," "The Addams Family Values" (ph), "In & Out," "Jeffrey." This whole long list, none of which, Paul Rudnick, unless I missed it, are spy thrillers (laughter). So what made you want to give the spy world a go?
RUDNICK: Oh, because I'm such a huge fan of all the Jason Bourne movies, the...
KELLY: Oh, yeah, same.
RUDNICK: ..."Mission Impossible" series and, of course, James Bond. And I just wanted to see if I could somehow make my way into that genre. And then I thought, OK, what if queer people could suddenly find a role in that kind of excitement and that kind of action? And it was so pleasurable because you kind of have complete permission to go anywhere in the world and even kill people. But I also wanted to redefine patriotism in a way by using this group of very much outsiders who are really performing at the very highest level of service.
KELLY: OK, tell me more about this group of outsiders, the Tuxedo Society of your title. Why did they form?
RUDNICK: Well, it was formed by a guy named Reggie O'Malley, who was a Navy SEAL, much decorated, and he was kicked out during the final throes of don't ask, don't tell. And as his revenge and his ultimate triumph, he has formed the Tuxedo Society, which is this top secret government-still-sponsored all-gay special ops unit. And he's realized that he knows gay people all over the world - some of them very highly placed, some of them in service professions, some of them now back in the military or ex-military - and that they will be incredibly useful in the many missions that he oversees.
KELLY: Yeah, I want to give people a sense of some of the people who he ropes into this Tuxedo Society, who all wear great tuxedos, by the way. He's got a couple of high-end real estate brokers in the group. Why? 'Cause they can weasel their way into anybody's house?
RUDNICK: Oh, exactly. They have ultimate access. They know the richest people. They know the oligarchs. They know the billionaires. And their presence there is never questioned.
KELLY: A high-end florist. Again, why?
RUDNICK: Well, the florist is in charge of the weekly arrangements at the White House, which is one of Andrew's first missions, where he realized these are the people who are often overlooked or underestimated, and yet there they are at the very center of power. And what if they were using those skills and using their kind of under-the-radar identities to really make a difference?
KELLY: OK, so Andrew, you just mentioned, Andrew Birnbaum, your main character, who, as I noted when I introduced you, he's a wannabe actor. He is currently selling candles at a shop in the East Village called Scents of the Season, which (laughter)...
RUDNICK: (Laughter) Yes.
KELLY: ...Made me laugh out loud. I'm thinking I would rather smell some seasons than others. But he is not - to state the obvious, he is not an obvious candidate for an elite espionage team. Was that kind of the point?
RUDNICK: Oh, yes. No, and he's very aware of it and very daunted, but at the other - on the other hand, very intrigued. But he has great improv skills, which is what makes him a great asset to the organization because he can turn himself into just about anybody. He can actually do accents that people believe so that he starts to realize what his role might be. But at first, he's just hopeless. And you sort of watch his development and you watch his self-confidence increase because these are challenges that he never imagined, including going off the high dive at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo. So he's...
KELLY: (Laughter).
RUDNICK: He kind of learns on the job.
KELLY: And some of his roles, just to give it, you mentioned the high diving. You mentioned the floral arranging. He manages to play a pretty convincing priest.
RUDNICK: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: Trained at the Vatican. What else?
RUDNICK: Let me see. He also becomes a German art authority. Oh, his skills as a cater waiter - which, as anyone who's come up in the New York theater and arts world knows, is the basic way you keep your life going while nothing is happening in your career. So - but on the other hand, those cater waiters go to the fanciest fundraisers, the biggest galas, everything that are sort of hubs of authority in our culture. And, you know, sometimes ignore those guys in the dinner jackets passing you a tray of canapes.
KELLY: And in your books often planning bugs and about to shoot you with a yoga mat gun and all kind of stuff. You do have fun playing with some of the cliches of the espionage genre. Share some of the weapons that you came up with.
RUDNICK: Oh, well, that's one of my favorite moments, especially in any Bond movie, where they go into the back room at MI6, wherever they are, and the gadgeteer introduces them to usually a black attache case filled with exploding everythings and the car and the outfit and the fountain pen. And Andrew gets all of that, but because this is a more highly developed organization, he gets a yoga mat that doubles as an assault weapon. He gets exploding PowerBars with the power of a grenade. At one point, they get party hats that serve as drones and allow the members of the society to actually fly. So it's everything that looks harmless and yet becomes so effective.
KELLY: I found something you wrote in your acknowledgments fascinating. You're comparing, you know, spy movies, action movies to musicals and saying they're more alike that we might think. You know, a car chase scene is choreographed mayhem. So is breaking into song and dance on a stage, apropos of nothing.
RUDNICK: Oh, absolutely. And it's the sort of wonderful absurdity that I was able to take advantage of. If you think of the opening scene of any Bond movie or the Bourne movies, where suddenly a guy in a tux shows up, and the whole scene erupts. People are falling off scaffolding. People are cartwheeling off the pyramids. And the guy at the center of it stays cool as can be. Unruffled. Well, one of my favorite moments in any of those real set-piece scenes is when someone like Jason Statham appears from underwater in a wet suit, which then after he kills all of the various ninja figures, he unzips the wet suit, steps out in a perfectly uncreased tuxedo, takes a martini glass and enters the French chateau.
KELLY: (Laughter).
RUDNICK: I just have such envy of that moment, especially the dry cleaning aspect.
KELLY: Absolutely. Life goals. By the end of this book, Paul Rudnick, it becomes clear that maybe there is more ahead. Another mission for the Tuxedo Society? Sequel in the works? Can you share anything?
RUDNICK: That would be delightful. I would love to. I do - 'cause I think all of these books and films tend to be franchises in which...
KELLY: Yeah.
RUDNICK: ...You look forward to their next adventure. And you have to keep upping the stakes and the gadgets and everything else so the people enjoy it. I would be very happy to join the Tuxedo Society myself.
KELLY: Paul Rudnick, author of the new novel "The Tuxedo Society." This was so fun. Thank you.
RUDNICK: Oh, thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
