Excerpt from The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Chapter 11

The first time I was invited to a Tuxedo Society dinner, I was dreading it. My best friend Brock had been nattering about these events, claiming they were "fun nights out" and "elegance personified." All I knew was that I'd graduated from college almost three years ago, that I'd been turned down by every drama school in the country, and at twenty-five I was still working at a candle shop called Smells of the Season in a Herald Square vertical mall, persuading mostly tourists to buy squat glass jars of pastel wax labeled things like Summer Squall, Christmas Eve Cinnamon Fog, and, inevitably, Pumpkin Spice Harvest Embrace. Inhaling these aggressively chemical compounds for eight hours, six days a week, had most likely made me sterile and clinically depressed. Brock suggested the candle fragrances should include Suicidal Bouquet and Lilac Self-Hatred.

I was sharing a basement apartment in the far reaches of the East Village with two medical students who I rarely saw, and who, en route to examining femurs and spleens, would ask me, "So how's the acting thing going?"—without waiting for a reply. I was grateful for this disinterest, which didn't require me to chirpily answer, "Hangin' in there!" or "Go fuck yourself!" By actually helping their fellow human beings, these students were my superiors in every way, which only increased my snarky despair, but I didn't want to alienate them in case I got hit by a bus or set myself on fire in a lunge at becoming a candle called Failed Actor Moonblossom.

"But you'll need to wear a tux," Brock texted me. "You have a tux, right?"

Weirdly, I did. I'd unearthed a passable Armani tux at a thrift store for my gigs as a cater waiter. The tux came in handy for evenings spent balancing trays of champagne flutes at museum galas, where the wealthy patrons would ignore me or grab my ass. I'm not terrible looking, and riding my bike everywhere keeps my butt where it should be, so I put on the tux with my almost-clean dress shirt and, I'm ashamed to admit, a pre-tied black bow tie. Learning to tie such an accessory was far beyond me, because I'm mildly dyslexic and tend to reverse numbers and be unable to remember titles of movies or bands when under stress, as in, whenever anyone asks me to name my top ten favorite anythings, I go blank, which is why I work extra hard when memorizing a script, something that I haven't needed to do in over a year. Fine, over two years. Improv with a comedy troupe where no one gets paid doesn't count (although, and this is humiliating, I like improv and I'm sometimes pretty good at it).

The Tuxedo Society dinner was being held at a fancy-ish restaurant in Midtown, meaning it wasn't a hangout for people my age, but more for corporate types and their guests from out of town. There were high ceilings, abstract Italian brass lighting fixtures, and tables set reasonably far apart, with well-dressed diners. I heard the Tuxedo Society regulars before I saw them, from a burst of raucous laughter and someone howling, "So I said, 'I can't understand you with that huge cock in your mouth!'?"

"Here he is," said Brock, standing up. Brock is much more socially confident than me, since he's tall and gym-built, and missed out on a modeling career due to being overly perfect. Even Brock's admitted, "I'm too much of a blond cartoon Nazi, as if I should be waltzing with a von Trapp girl in a gazebo. Nowadays people want quirky models who look like they've just wandered away from skateboarding on a highway off-ramp or their twelfth try at rehab." But Brock is good-hearted and supports himself as a salesclerk at the Ralph Lauren flagship on East 72nd Street, where his Aryan splendor fits right in.

"Everyone," said Brock, "this is Andrew Birnbaum, who's a wonderful actor and can get you a discount on scented candles."

The eight people, six men of various ages and two stylish women in their thirties, were looking at me with welcoming smiles and a mood of "We'll judge him on every level and compare notes later." Everyone was in formal wear, although the tuxedoes ranged from custom-fitted to maybe passed down from a dad or brother who was a slightly different size.

Excerpted from The Tuxedo Society by Paul Rudnick. Copyright © 2026 by Paul Rudnick. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.