Read in 2018 or 2019. This coming out novel from the '90s hasn't aged well. It's impossible to imagine a 20-something professional man afraid of being gay in CHICAGO or all places. It's humorous enough, but I couldn't decided if I liked it or hated it. The main character isn't completely likable, but the situations are pretty farcical and this would make a humorous play. ( )

Lionel Frank is an adman in Chicago, spending most of his time working his sole account All-Pro Power Tools. He doesn't mind the work, but having to sit through the constant he-man anti-gay comments from his fellow employees is starting to take its toll on him. You see, being a gay man -- and a closeted one, at that -- working on a traditionally testosterone-infused project like power tools, is even more of a task thanks to his constant worry that he may be found out and summarily drummed from his job. To make matters worse, the agency earned a nomination from a Trippy award, one of Chicago advertising's most prestigious trophies....so that means he not only must attend the awards dinner, but must find a date -- preferably a female one.

He's been subtly flirting with Tracy, one of the secretaries in his office, to keep up the appearance of heterosexuality and decides she should be the one to attend the dinner with him. Things seem to be going well as the date of the dinner quickly approaches, until during one lunch break, Lionel and Tracy are walking back to the office when Lionel spies his best friend and hairdresser coming down the street. Not wanting him and Tracy to meet and to potentially out him, he quickly insinuates himself in a protest outside the Romanian embassy and finds himself falling hard for one of the protestors -- a handsome doctor-in-training named Emil.

And now, every attempt to show how hetero he is at the office and to his bosses winds up backfiring as his feelings for Emil cloud his judgement. Lionel winds up digging himself a deeper hole with only one possible way to make a happy ending for himself.

Maybe if I had read this when the book was first published over 10 years ago, I might have found Lionel's constant circumstances humorous. Instead, I found myself reading through the overly-stereotyped characters and somewhat believable situations only half-heartedly. I blame it on Lionel, whom I could never bring myself to like. He's a jerk, plain and simple, and that turned me off immediately. The secondary characters, though, make up for him: Yolanda, the curvacious Latina with her head stuck in sci-fi novels; Emil, the doctor-in-training cum protestor; Toné, his friend and hairdresser; his Aunt Lola, who has created a line of greetings cards specific to the gay community; and the bosses of his agency (along with their wives).

As for the situations into which Lionel puts everyone, they're just okay -- save the final sequence at a cabin in Wisconsin. That I actually enjoyed -- the in-fighting, the kidnapping, the fast-paced action.

But as a whole, "Closet Case" wasn't as funny as I expected based on the book's blurbers. It was simply okay. ( )

The protagonist of the novel, Lionel Frank, is a closeted gay advertising executive leading a double life. In order to avoid derision from his homophobic colleagues, he plays the role of a straight man during the day while at night he searches for the perfect mate via 1-900 telephone sex services. The tangled web of deception in his life grows comically with each turn of the page. Accompanied by a colorful cast of characters, including Latina neighbor Yolanda; her boyfriend, a wannabe men's warrior; and a Transylvanian nationalist named Emil, Lionel embarks on a voyage of self-acceptance and fulfillment.