E-Mail This Article to a Friend Q&A The mysteries of multiculturalism BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN

Graydove Hoffenstein, a gay Native American Jew, wants to solve his father’s murder and get his mother out of jail. But to do so he’ll need a little help from his friends and family — a cast of characters that includes a sister who’s decided to become black, a Puerto Rican boyfriend who wants to become a woman, and a blind psychic who’s chauffeured around in a Yugo with her seeing-eye cat, as well as some old family ghosts. It all goes down in Steven Cooper’s debut novel, With You in Spirit (Alyson), a raucous and rolling mystery set in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard. And when we say it’s a camp ghost story, we’re not talking the sort you tell around the fire.

The Phoenix recently caught up with Cooper, a Boston native and an Emmy Award–winning television journalist who reported on the 2000 Florida-recount fiasco for the Phoenix and who’s currently a news anchor in Orlando. We talked with him about the difference between fiction and journalism, the gay-mystery tradition, and whether the book will make us blush.

Q: How was it making the leap from television journalism to fiction writing?

A: I’ve always wanted to write fiction, and I’ve written fiction for as long as I’ve been in television. Writing this, it came about because I was in a pit of crime and grime all day, and it was nice to come home and make things up. I’d work a full day and then come home and write for two to three hours at night. As a reporter I’d be covering murder trials and all the worst things of society, and it’s just nice to come home and make up stories.

Q: Can you foresee doing fiction full-time?

A: I’ve imagined making the switch to fiction for a very long time. That said, I think it would be a disservice to myself to leave the field of journalism. Journalism gets you involved in the world. It’s great material, if nothing else. But I can definitely foresee a day when I’m giving 75 percent to writing and 25 percent to journalism.

Q: A gay Native American Jew is just about as minority as you can get. How’d you develop Graydove’s character?

A: I started writing the novel when I was living in Phoenix, Arizona. Living out there, I was really inspired by the Native American influence in the valley. I was really surprised that in the metropolis there was still a very present Native American influence, and I wanted to write about that. And I’m a white, gay Jew, so my way of dealing in that was finding humor in blending all the cultures, creating a character that was a composite of all these things, bouncing in and out of these different cultures. The end result is that he has a lot of growing up to do, as a gay man, as a Native American, as a Jew.

I didn’t set out to write a mystery. I set out to tell a story. I know how intriguing murder cases can be from being a reporter, and I gravitated to that. I wasn’t trying to carry on the tradition of the gay mystery, but at the same time, I didn’t want to bring it down a notch. This book is admittedly over the top and I know that. I figured I better have a very good time with this and go crazy with it.

Q: How explicit is the book?

A: I sent out some publicity postcards to announce the release and give people a view of the itinerary. At the very bottom, with an asterisk, I wrote, "Some material may not be appropriate for children or ultraconservatives." There’s stuff in the book that won’t appeal to some people — some explicitly gay stuff. But my mom and dad read it, and loved it, of course. I could’ve written a book backwards and they would love it. My mom said it wasn’t graphic, which makes me wonder what she’s been reading. Like any contemporary novel, there’s sex in it, straight and gay. Bernard Law would probably not find it appropriate reading material.

Steven Cooper reads from With You in Spirit this Saturday, September 6 at 3 p.m. at Borders, 85 Worcester Road, in Framingham. Call (508) 875-2321. He also reads Sunday, September 7 at 4:30 p.m. at We Think the World of You, 540 Tremont Street, in Boston. Call (617) 574-5000. Both readings are free.