Closet Case - Softcover

Robert Rodi was born in Chicago in the conformist 1950s, grew up in the insurrectionist 1960s, came of age in the hedonist 1970s, and went to work in the elitist 1980s. This roller-coaster ride has left him with a distinct aversion to isms of any kind; it also left him with an ear for hypocrisy, cant, and platitudes that allowed him, in the 1990s, to become a much-lauded social satirist.

His first novel, Fag Hag, was published in 1991 and was swiftly translated into Italian, French, German, and Japanese. It was followed by Closet Case (1992), What They Did to Princess Paragon (1994), Drag Queen (1995), Kept Boy (1997), Bitch Goddess (2002), and When You Were Me (2007). His first nonfiction book, Dogged Pursuit: My Year of Competing Dusty, the World's Least Likely Agility Dog was released by Hudson Street Press in 2009.

Robert's shorter fiction can be found in a number of anthologies, including Men On Men 5, His, and Sandman: Book of Dreams. His novella Glad, Gladder, Gladys was serialized online at USAToday.com. His literary criticism has appeared in the pages of The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, NewCity, and The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review.

Robert is the creator of several comic-book series, including 4 Horsemen, Codename: Knockout, and The Crossovers. He was a founding member of the Chicago-based performance art troupe, The Pansy Kings, who were active throughout the 1990s, and he wrote sketches for the Live Bait Theater's revues Junk Food and Dear Jackie: The Queen of Camelot Remembered.

Robert still lives in Chicago, in a century-old Queen Anne house with his partner Jeffrey Smith and a constantly shifting number of dogs.

Clever, lightweight entertainment from the author of Fag Hag (1992--not reviewed): a broad farce about a Chicago account- executive at an ad agency populated by homophobes who lives through a series of embarrassing misadventures--before screaming out his sexual preference to the world. Lionel Frank is a nervous Nellie who pretends by day to be one of the macho boys but at night frequents dance bars and yearns for a male lover. Fortunately, he thinks, the art director at the agency is a lesbian, thereby directing homophobic attention away from him, but she also happens to frequent the same dance club he does, and sees him panting over a nude dancer's equipment. Lionel at one point gets thrown into jail when he's caught in the middle of a Slavic demonstration, where he meets Emil, a straight medical student he longs for. Mostly, though, he bounces around town either alone or in the company of neighbor and confidante Yolanda--until the whole group is sent packing for a weekend together at the Wild Rose, a resort in Wisconsin. Lionel has a wonderful night with David, the owner's son who is leaving the priesthood (Rodi, at the Wild Rose as elsewhere, takes all the easy potshots, especially at the men's movement). Meanwhile, Bob, Yolanda's on-again off-again lover, turns up at the resort with a spear and beats up Lionel before kidnapping him. Finally, though, having had enough of disguises and duplicity, Lionel rises from the lake like a fish and screams out: ``I'M GAY! I'M GAY! I'M GAY! I'M GAAAY!'' In an epilogue, we learn that he's a happy soul, so outfront he even announces to a Chicago cabbie that he's on his way to meet his male lover. Rodi's caricature of office politics is a hoot--but the comedy here is so one-sided and broad that it often misses its target. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.