Does Freddy Dance

New York journalist, short-story writer and actor Scanlan makes an auspicious debut with these 14 connected stories, which deftly blend humor, tenderness and tragedy to form an incisive portrait of a gay male. Freddy, the youngest of five kids, exhibits clear sexual signals early on: in ``Family Portrait'' (set in 1965), the six-year-old has already amassed more than 20 Broadway and movie albums (favoring Julie Andrews) and chooses an outfit for his doll as he and his mother fly to visit the grandparents. (In one of Scanlan's subtle references, readers realize that Granddaddy apparently molested Freddy's mother when she was a girl.) At 11, Freddy learns about smoking (``Cigarettes'') from the knowledgeable teenaged boy next door, who rouses the youngster's sexual longings. Eventually, Freddy pursues his dream-he leaves the family home in Washington, D.C., and (rather too easily) becomes a TV actor in New York. Now 30-ish, Freddy branches out to Broadway; a boyfriend dies of AIDS; a new relationship is tentatively begun (at which point the prospective partner poses the eponymous query). Scanlan sensitively explores themes of parental anxieties (father is a stolid lawyer, mother a lush whose benders cause her to become literally lost), sibling relations and interpersonal dependence. (Sept.)