Gunther Allen: The LGBTQ+ Stories That Still Need Telling

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Hi and welcome to Author Conversations with me, Chris Dabbs again. And I tell you what,

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today I'm joined by someone who's had a fascinating mix of careers and experiences.

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I'm joined by Gunther Allen. Now Gunther has been a musician, an international athlete,

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a swimming coach and a designer. He's also spent years supporting the LGBTQ+ community.

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Now he's writing books that range from crime fiction to stories about identity and coming out,

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with more on the way. So Gunther, after that introduction, welcome to author conversations.

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It's lovely to have you here. Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

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Fantastic. Well, I mean, as I was saying earlier, you've worn quite a few different hats over

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the years, Gunther. I mean, when did writing begin to feel like the next chapter for you?

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Well, it came slowly. About 15 years ago, I tried to write a book and it just kept on

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hitting roadblocks. I couldn't figure out how to finish it. Then one day I decided I'm just

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going to finish it and the hell with it. Let's see what a, you know, and it thing is like. And I,

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this isn't so bad. Did a lot of editing. I probably edited it in nine, ten times. But in the end,

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I said I'll give it another try. In the next book, I finished them three months. So it just

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seemed like the next chapter since I retired. I decided that this would be my little hobby and

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it's been coming a little bit more than that. It's become a passion of mine.

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Great. Well, that's fantastic. I think that's it, isn't it? It's the confidence. You suddenly

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thought, okay, I could get through the first one and I thought it was going to be a waterfall. But now,

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get into it, right? Yeah, exactly. Okay, well, let's start with your latest book then. Your latest book,

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something about Martin was recently released as an ebook, right? I mean, what inspired you to write

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this story? I mean, what was the starting point for the characters or the situation? I wanted to tell

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story about a gay man getting old, what it looks like, what it feels like. I suppose in some ways,

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my story is about, my story about Martin is a sort of preview of my own life. Of course,

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there's no instruction manual and warranties of definitely expired by the timing life. But

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something about Martin is about Martin Riley, who is 89 grieving the loss of Tony, his long

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lifetime partner, who is still, well, he still talks to him every day. Sometimes Martin remembers Tony

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is gone, but other days, he doesn't. So there's a part of the story that he meets a college student named

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Charles and wanders into his life and Martin, something impulsive he decides to ask the kid to come

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and live with him. He has an extra room, want you come and rent it for me.

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When I started this book, I wanted to discover an unlikely friendship between two different men

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from two different generations. Martin has a lifetime of experience and memory, whereas Charlie

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has youth on his side, but he doesn't have very much money or direction.

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Between them, they discover that family isn't necessarily the people that you share at the DNA with.

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But sometimes, a person, you know, it's my dog shaking, sorry. Sometimes it's a person who shows up

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when you least expect it. There are several twists in the story. I wanted to show

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that older people can have special talents. And in this case, Martin, he just happens to be a

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whistler. And not just every day whistler, but happens to be a ambient whistler. I guess it's important

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for me to tell a story that doesn't treat us like we've reached the end of the story. You know,

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we're still there. We still fall in love. We still make mistakes, need companionship.

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Don't need to make connections along the way. I guess getting older doesn't make us less human.

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It just gives us more material to work with. That's true, isn't it? I think that's the interesting

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point about getting older, actually. But you mentioned how old was Martin with 89, did you say?

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He starts at 89. There's a big birthday party where he turns 90 to surprise party. I don't want to

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give too much away, but he ends up showing his friend Charlie and everyone else out. What kind of

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wasp for he really is when he ends up whistling at his birthday at a special party.

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Right. I mean, that's quite amazing. Whistling is in whistling with his lips, right?

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Yeah, whistling. Nothing clever about it, right? It's whistling. No, I know you mean, yeah,

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over here in England. It's kind of a quirky, quirky, you know, I don't know where I just was dreaming

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about it one day and ended up making it part of the storyline. It's really, it's very tender and it's

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very heartwarming. Again, I don't want to give too much away. I think you should read the book because

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several people tell me it was a gut punch, but in a good way. And one of my friends said,

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it's the first book I've ugly cried with, cried to in a long, long time. So it's, it does push some

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emotional buttons. Ugly cried. Like it. Like it. Okay. And you've also finished another book, which I

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understand is your longest one so far. I mean, you completed what Snow Clones. It's just an interesting

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title. I mean, what can you read your readers expect from this particular upcoming book then?

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Yes, I finished it, but I'm still going through a lot of editing. I've been told by

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publicers that it is kind of long. And, you know, there are some parts I want to

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streamline a little bit. But you have to imagine the future in 2050 where humanity is starting to run

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out of people. Women are disappearing. Wildlife has basically vanished. AI intelligence has taken

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over the workforce. And the human race is staring extinction in their face. Naturally, someone

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decides the sensible solution is to start being people. What could possibly go wrong, right?

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Snow Clones follows Eric Gunderson, born through an experimental clonk program and raised in Texas.

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But he's unaware of his truth about his, he's not unaware of the truth about his origins.

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And tele turns 18. 18 has all sorts of twists in his life. He eventually meets someone named Andy

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Mueller, who is his ex-exhaaptenetic twin. It's just happened, Stan. They bumped together in

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Colorado on the ski slopes. Eric is a water pole player at the time, but Andy Mueller is trying to

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convince him that he could become a champion skier. The two are identical twins by genetic code,

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but they are opposite in almost every other way. Eric's junior year from Water Polo ends up taking

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into the ski slopes of Aspen and Brechtich, and also in Chilean andes, where he ends up becoming

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the world's fastest bear in breaking the world record at 160 miles per hour. Through the book,

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he eventually becomes more confident in skiing and his coach, his mentor and his competitor is his

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friend Andy, his twin. And they compete together in Norway for the in the Olympics in 2050.

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But beneath this sci-fi fiction and ice-peed skiing, a story, a story about identity.

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What makes us who we are? Is it our DNA, our upbringing, our choices of people who we love,

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who love us? That's where Jose Rojas is a Chilean, then enters the picture. Jose offers Eric something

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that Andy could never give him the kind of love that doesn't depend about winning or depends on

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breaking records. Or being the most extraordinary person, it just ends up being somebody who loves you

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for who you are. Yes, this book is my longest so far, but I needed to give it room to explore

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a big complicated world while keeping the story grounded in a very human relationship.

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You could say I went slightly beyond the boy meets boy plot. So in Snowclones,

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it helps to understand that genetics can only take you so far. You must have potential,

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but you can't manufacture determination, discipline, or the willingness to work harder than everyone

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else. Generally, I say that you can't put greatness in a P-treatish and expect it to come out ready

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for a gold medal. That part is up to you. It's amazing if you could though, right? Or if we could.

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I should say, but I guess that comes from your sports coaching background, which we'll talk about

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in a bit. Because that's quite interesting, but I'm not surprised. I'm intrigued, I think, because

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of the cloning aspect and all of the sci-fi angles on that, sounds really interesting, actually,

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if you think about it, because I was wondering until you said whether they were identical in looks as well,

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how did you handle the fact that they bumped into each other in a pretty much public place, I presume?

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Yes. He was up with his best friend and he was going to the University of Colorado in Boulder.

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Up to the ski slopes and they bumped in. He starts looking at somebody that they happen to be having

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a gay ski competition on the slopes. And he looks at this guy who's coming down in the slopes in

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his speedo and he goes, "I looks a lot like me." And then he starts to stop him sort of on the slopes

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and understand that Andy, I'm sorry, Eric, I'm thinking of your name Chris, I was almost saying

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to say, "Eric, he hasn't skied before." So he ends up falling at this guy's feet and then he

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look at each other and he's just like, "Are you stalking me?" And he's like stumbling over this.

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And they meet and it becomes a, let's get to know each other type of situation and it offers

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an opportunity for him to, Andy took to try to convince him to get into skiing. Why? Because he wants

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to have somebody to mentor and Andy ends up being a very complex character who ends up being totally

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opposite of Eric. Eric wants to love and Andy wants the next best thing that's out there.

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That is interesting. I wonder what would happen if I was in the supermarket and I bumped into,

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"Well, I saw somebody look like me." I'd probably run that actually to be fair, but

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no, I think that's great. Okay, well, thank you. Well, I can imagine that, what you'd want to do is

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just to write that as extensively as possible, really, I think, wouldn't you? Because that's a big

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world. You've put in various sports, you've put in the Gays Hub plots or major plots, whichever way

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that turns out for you. You've looked at all of that. It's not surprised. Yeah, but good luck with

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that one. I'm sure that we'll be interested to hear about that. But another thing that you're also

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doing at the same time, you're a busy guy, you got to, is you're also returning to the Game

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Mafia series, right? You're working on the final book in the Game Mafia trilogy, tentatively titled

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"The Mafia Ending." I mean, how can you see that series closing? Well, first of all, you have to

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explain the first two books. The first one is "Not Your Father's Mafia," where basically that's the boy,

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the characters are Tito and Rico. Tito is the Mafia's families, basically, heir to the King pin

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position. And then the second story, the second book, it's my big fat Mafia family,

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is a story about the wedding, which the ending of the first book ends up with him proposing,

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which by the way, Rico was in the second book, he's no longer, but he was a FBI agent who was

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assigned to look into the "Babarati Mafia" family, which happened to be

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he stumbled on Grindr and met Tito there, and he didn't know until the day he got his dossier,

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the assiatician said, "You are to investigate and infiltrate this family." And it was sort of

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kind of a situation where he met this guy, he already knew him, he was already having feelings

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towards him, and now he was supposed to be sort of the FBI agent to get whatever he could

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put on him. So anyhow, I have to bring this to a close without making the reader feel unsatisfied

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with the storylines progression. The trilogy, you have an obligation to the characters,

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as well as the readers who have followed them throughout the story.

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I've decided to end this story on the island of Sicily in Italy where the old-world Mafia,

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the Italian Mafia began, and where the American Mafia's connection of new ideas collide.

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I'm not exactly sure where, how I'm going to end the story now, but it's a, I see it being as a

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satisfying conclusion while remaining two to the characters. Tito and Rico's choices have consequences,

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those ends need attention to love and humor, need to progress, the ending needs to feel earned rather

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than convenient. I want to leave the readers with something to chew on, real life doesn't, and

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neither should fiction. I guess sometimes the most satisfying conclusion is simply

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knowing that the story has reached a place that it always was headed to.

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If that makes any sense. No, no, it does. Rather than just walking off into the sunset,

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or maybe there is walking off into the sunset, actually, we think about it. If it's been heading

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in that direction where people are getting together and being happy. That's really interesting.

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You're clearly passionate about all of these projects. It's lucky you're retired because I don't think

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you really would be able to get the time now. I just have these dreams and I dream a lot of it up

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and then put on paper. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I step it in dream again. It's just been, in fact,

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this book was a first book, not your father's Mafia, was a first book I had published.

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It was actually a contest where you're supposed to use Mafia as sort of the main crux of the story

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and put your own spin on it. I decided to do where a Mafia kingpin's son ends up falling in love with

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the FBI agent that happens to save his life and you have to read the story to understand that.

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It's been something that pushed me out of my comfort zone to do. I've ended up finished that book

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in about a month, just a little over a month. It was only 40,000 words. It was shorter,

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but my second one doubled to 80,000 and this may double again. I don't know. We'll see.

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So far, I've got a few chapters in and it's again, I'm trying to pull everything together. It's

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satisfying for not only the characters but also the readers. Well, at least it shows you care.

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You're taking that much time to make sure that everything is there for your readers. As you say,

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this is an obligation to characters, isn't it? I think that's another thing. There's another

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part of your work that I'd like to explore with that. It feels very personal to your generation.

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Through books like "Pushed Out" of the closet without a parachute and coming out in paradise,

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you're exploring the LGBTQ+ experiences. Why is it important to share the stories of older

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gay men? Other experiences you worry could be lost if your generation doesn't tell its own stories?

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Well, in today's political atmosphere, people understand that

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suddenly we didn't materialize when St. Sex marriages became legal. We had lies before. The world

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decided they were prepared to acknowledge us. Many older gay men grew up in a time when being honest

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who you are would cost you your job, maybe your family, your friends, and maybe your own safety.

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We learned how to enter a room and we entered it. Which part of our lives we could discuss

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and which needed to be edited out of the conversation. Some of us spent years pretending

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that we lived with roommates, that were actually our partners, which led to interesting

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discussions about who to leave in what room and what bed. But then we were blindsided in the 80s

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early 90s with the AIDS I think to make. I personally, in many others, I've lost most of our friends.

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It became a point where family was more chosen family.

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Care for one another, we buried people we loved while the world debated whether we deserved sympathy.

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The hard time. I wanted to share this with the younger generation. I mean, they know about it,

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but they don't really, when you read a story in the book, you get more of a sense of what you go

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through than just talking about it. I'm delighted that the younger LGBT, LGBT,

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Q, us, people have the opportunities they have today. I'm not interested in romanticizing the

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bad old days living in a closet was not charming historical feature and discriminating did not

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build character. It caused pain. I don't know. That's, I guess, that's freedom. Freedom's

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that we enjoy. We're not simple, simply delivered at our doorsteps. It was free shipping.

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People fought for many of the rights that we have today and just wanted to share that. I think

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that's important. It seems to be drowned out with today's politics and book bams and

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taking any reference of us out of the museums and Smithsonian's, et cetera. We had a complicated

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book or, I want to say upbringing, but they were complicated times. Not that they're more simple now,

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they seem to be going backwards, but we're still writing our own history. I just want to be in a way

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a little part of that. I think even today there's a coming out process for a lot of people, but it's

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the disability that we have on TVs and sitcoms and, you know, I'm trying to think of, you know,

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glee and some of the other thing that the younger kids would have saw that they saw a gay

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person in a positive light. We didn't have that growing up. It was always in a negative light. It was

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always the boys in the band. They were alcoholics or something was wrong with them. You wouldn't find

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normal people in normal situations as you did as we did. But today they have that visibility and I

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think that's important for them and that helps them a lot in a lot of ways.

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No, absolutely. Well, again, we were starting to run out of time, unfortunately, but we still

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got some time to talk about your sports experience really because you spend years involved in LGBTQ+

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sports and supporting people affected by HIV and AIDS, as you mentioned. I mean, how much of those

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experiences have shaped what you write about now, not just that historical part and making sure,

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well, actually, I say not just, but yes, actually, do weaving in all of the history into the fiction,

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basically, that must be what you do. But I mean, how is it the sport? Obviously, you're writing about

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water polo, I think, and also skiing, right? Well, I was a water polo player in a swimmer.

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I was played nationally and I was the most valuable player in high school. I had to play for

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Newman who was the Olympic, well, I wasn't Olympic coach, but he groomed more Olympic athletes.

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I ended up playing for him at UCI University of California at Irvine and he grew more of the players

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for the Olympics. In fact, I played with half of the Olympic team of 1980. I'm sorry, 1984, because I

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quit water polo two years afterwards. I didn't stay in other four years because we boycotted in 1980.

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So I wasn't able to be part of the Olympic team, but half of my co-water polo players ended up going

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to the Olympics. I figured, Roa, you know, many other crews who was a goalie. It was a funny story,

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is that I had braces when I was in college. I had gotten them at an older age. My parents couldn't

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afford them, but I got them as I was lifeguarding, I started earning more money and I was practicing at

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UCI. And a crew is one of the biggest players at water polo from the US team. I think it was like

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270 pounds, 6'7" and I was guarding him and he shoved his elbow, boom, right into my

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and I had a bridge in my brace that was pulling the teeth apart and had a spring in there. Anyhow,

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the wiring went through my side of my cheek and sticking out and I had to do an emergency gig

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to my orthodontist to fix it. And all didn't know my coach was like, "Get back in the water,

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get back in, keep playing." And I'm here like, with wires sticking out of my mouth.

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A lot of what happened to me is in my books. Yes, it's fiction, but a lot of it is

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situations that happened to me or around me that I saw. So there's parts of me in all the books that

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I write. I have mentioned only about the age, but I was part of Ground Zero in that time because I was

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also had a friendship relationship with Rock Hudson, which I wrote about and being pushed out of the

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closet without a parachute. There are so many other people that I met. It's been lovely talking to you

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today. And what I've really actually enjoyed is hearing how your experiences and the stories you

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have and want to tell have really come together like that. Well, there you go, good to thank you very,

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very much for joining me on Author Conversations. And remember, everyone, you will find details

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of Gunther's books and links to his work alongside this interview as well. So I'm Chris Dabs. Thanks for

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watching and I'll see you all next time on Author Conversations. Take care, and Gunther, thank you very,

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very much for joining me today. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can watch more Author Conversations here.

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If you enjoyed this conversation, you can watch more Author Conversations here.