Dale Corvino’s Travelcentric Memoir is a Must-Read For Summer
For terrific Summer reading, tuck into Afterlife of a Kept Boy, a new gay memoir by writer Dale Corvino.
Afterlife of a Kept Boy has us intrigued. First, there’s the title. Then there’s the talented chap who wrote it. Dale Corvino is a 2021 Lambda Literary Emerging Fellow, a 2018 winner of the Gertrude Press Fiction contest, and contributed a chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Male Sex Work, Culture, and Society. BONDS & BOUNDARIES, his debut short story collection, was released in 2023 from Rebel Satori Press, and now he’s telling all in a queer memoir of misadventures from Positano to Paris. We caught up with Corvino to learn more about the book and travel.
Vacationer: When did you receive your first passport? What was your first overseas trip?
Dale Corvino: My college roommate and I were invited by a British society decorator to spend a summer in Southern Italy. It was to be an inspirational trip and a chance for me to reconnect with my heritage. It went sideways about halfway into the summer. That passport would get stamped with dozens of trips to Europe with the Decorator—Paris, London, Italy, Switzerland, the South of France, etc, some of which are recounted in my memoir.
What trip or travel experience sparked your passion for travel?
I grew up on South Shore of Long Island, and from the beach on clear days you could make out the gleaming edges of the World Trade Center towers. They became a beacon for me. I’d take the train into the city as often as I could and set about getting to know the city, and getting in on those towers’ dedication to world trade. From there I wanted to know other cities.
Do you write when you travel or do you ruminate?
I have a job as a traveling salesman and often write in transit. I especially love writing on Amtrak trains. I will write on planes despite the obstacles (cramped conditions and the movements of the person in the seat to which my tray table is attached in main cabin, too much pampering in First Class). I do sometimes crack my laptop on the subway, usually for longer trips to Brooklyn or Queens. Commuter rail lines usually make for ideal conditions. Ferries can be a challenge but I manage when the sea is calm. Coffee shop pit stops are great, but nothing beats an anonymous motel room. Maya Angelou once said about hotel rooms, “I feel as if all my beliefs are suspended. Nothing holds me to anything.” I feel a similar kind of boundlessness in transit.
With the new book out, are you currently on book tour, and what have been some of the highlights?
I went to L.A. in February and got to preview the book at a Slamdance film premiere. It’s a feature-length documentary about my old friend Dean Johnson called The Big Johnson. I appear in the film. That was a blast, we even walked the carpet.
Where do you usually call home, and if Vacationers were coming to visit, what are three things they must do in your town?
There are so many musts in New York City. Depending on the season, I love to get out on the water, even for just a ferry ride. I take the NYC Ferry from Wall Street to Red Hook when I go to Pioneer Works. Theater is more than just Broadway productions, check out some of the more experimental theater companies. I first saw A Strange Loop at Playwrights Horizons, where it was developed, before it transferred to Broadway (and won a Pulitzer). I also love wandering around uptown. Most of Manhattan’s hills were smoothed out when the grid was laid, but Fort George Hill is the exception. Also, Fort Tryon Park with remnants of a former estate hidden in the lushness, and the Cloisters, a wild collage of plundered European buildings.
Top three favorite places in the US? And the top 3 in the world so far?
Avoid the alcohol tourism and New Orleans is fantastic for food, for music, for vibes, for trade. I tend to stay in the Marigny or Bywater. I’ve been traveling to Los Angeles at least once a year for decades and usually stay in the Silverlake/Echo Park area, where there are very walkable/hikeable pockets. Nothing beats bodysurfing in the big waves at Cherry Grove, N.Y. where I have a beach house. It continues to be a queer refuge.
Years ago I was given a silent, shoeless tour of the holy city of Moulay Idriss in central Morocco that I cannot forget. I’ve been back to Santiago, Chile many times over the years to visit one of my oldest friends (the instigator in my memoir) and on a recent trip (2019) witnessed Chile Despertó, a mass populist uprising which started as a protest of a small increase in the metro fare and grew into an intersectional demand for human rights, constitutional reforms, and accountability of past abuses. Punta Arenas for the feeling of vastness in every scrap of civilization and for the uncanny hominess of the penguin colonies.
What’s still on your bucket list to visit?
Istanbul.
What’s one thing you never forget to pack in your suitcase?
Snacks, usually protein bars, fruit, and chocolates.
Window or aisle?
Window. I just get knocked into a lot in an aisle seat.
Where are you headed next? Please plug your next book reading(s).
I’m going to Milwaukee to attend a trade show in early June and when it’s done I’ll be taking Amtrak to Chicago to do a reading with poet C. Russell Price at the Leather Archives & Museum. I love the museum and especially their collection of gear from the Satyrs, a gay motorcycle club (gang?). Then I’ll be headed south to read at the Dream Palace, a lovely queer bookshop in Indianapolis, with poet Sylvia Thomas.
As a gay man, is there anything that you worry about regarding safety when you travel?
I don’t love traveling to captive US red states. I stopped traveling to Florida years ago for that reason. Overseas, I avoid certain nations where rulers weaponize homophobia to maintain power. It’s one reason I haven’t made it to Turkey yet.
Paris, London, and Italy are featured in your new book, Afterlife of a Kept Boy. Are those scenes based on fact, or fiction…or faction?
These are recollections, and memory is often faulty, but I did have a living witness with whom I could fact-check. He’s the instigator in the story but he’s also a long-term AIDS survivor, an archivist and memory-keeper. My own photos acted as touchstones of the past. I also did a fair amount of research to provide physical and cultural contexts for these misadventures.
Why is Afterlife of a Kept Boy a must-read for Summer travel?
You can get off on traveling vicariously to these luxury destinations—the Ritz in Paris, a villa in Southern Italy, Capri, Positano, the Concorde to London, Claridge’s, Mark’s Club—while at the same time judging me for my poor life choices.
