Mother Is Not Herself Today

Fred Hunter and Friend Mother Is Not Herself Today
And I'm Not Alex Reynolds

By Fred Hunter

Not long ago I was being interviewed on a radio program and was asked to read a portion of Federal Fag to the audience. When I asked which portion, the interviewer said, "The part where you and your mother break into the house." I was momentarily confused, because I've never broken into anything and I couldn't imagine my mother venturing more than 50 feet from her recliner. Then I realized she was talking about Alex Reynolds and his mother, Jean. This was the first inkling I had that writing these books in the first person had effectively led people to believe that I actually was the character I was writing about.

In fact, the next time I was interviewed it was by a reporter who so firmly believed that I was Alex that he kept asking me about my home life, as if he expected me to recount stories of foreign agents barging in and out of doors, as if my life was an endless bedroom farce with a mysterious twist. Increasingly frustrated with my answers, the reporter finally said, "Well, what's your mother really like?" To which I replied, "Godzilla."

Perhaps it's my own fault. I've said so many times that Alex and his mate Peter are based on my late husband and myself that people have taken it too literally. There are similarities, particularly in passages where Alex waxes eloquent about how lucky he is in love, and his oft-stated feeling that his husband is too good for him. That certainly reflects the way I felt about my husband. However, there are many more differences than similarities.

Alex is younger than I am, and much more gregarious than I'll ever be. He's liable to fly across the city or the country at the drop of a hat if the circumstances demand. I require at least two weeks' notice to make a trip to the grocery store. Alex and I share a sense of humor, but his is tempered with patience and kindness; mine can be so cynical that I'm forever in danger of dissolving in my own acid. And Alex enjoys a supremely harmonious love life, while I can't even peacefully co-exist with my own cats. Probably the biggest differences between us is that Alex is blessed with one of the most wonderful mothers a gay boy could hope for. His mother is quick-witted and fey, completely accepting and disarmingly funny. My mother destroyed Tokyo.

The ironic thing about all this is that while people readily believe that I'm Alex, they find it impossible to believe that his mother, Jean, is based on a real person. But she is, in fact, based on my oldest friend, Joan Edwards: the woman who has been a mother to me for over a quarter of a century. Although Joan has never disguised herself and taken an apartment under an assumed name to pursue an investigation, one can readily imagine her doing it if she thought it was necessary.

In case you think I'm joking about how much alike Joan and her fictional counterpart are, just a week ago I was complaining to her about the fact that people assume I'm Alex. She listened patiently, then said, "Don't worry about it, darling. A lot of people are green behind the ears!"

"That's wet," I said, rolling my eyes.

Oh hell, maybe there are more similarities between the two of us than I'd like to admit.