You can't think of writing a novel about Fire Island without thinking of Andrew Holleran, who along with Larry Kramer practically invented the genre when their books about the place were released months apart in 1978 (the year after I was born).

Dancer From the Dance is an elegy for a place and time, a lament for a party told after the streamers have been taken down. It's lush and gorgeous and at times joyful, but also bittersweet and sad; prophetic in the way it would presage the AIDS crisis to come. It filled me with longing and heartache.

What also struck me was how relevant a lot of it still was. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. Many of the social aspects of gay life that were present in 1978 are still present today. I came away thinking that my approach should take another snapshot. How has that society evolved? How has it not evolved?

A line near the end of Dancer haunted me. It's spoken by Malone, one of the main characters, as a cautionary piece of advice to an admirer while they take in the scene around them: "Everything is beautiful here, and that is all it is: beautiful. Do not expect anything else, do not expect nourishment for anything but your eye—and you will handle it all beautifully." In other words, caveat emptor.