Review: I Came Out for This? | Akron Beacon Journal

Teenage angst is like this, falling hard and fast for the first person you date and thinking it’s the real thing, you’ll never love another, you’ll die if you’re not together.

It’s not supposed to happen when you’re 45 and supposedly mature enough to get over it. It happens to Joanna Kane, narrator of I Came Out for This?, the outstanding, hilarious debut novel by former Clevelander Lisa Gitlin.

Months after coming out, Joanna is introduced to Terri, who’s visiting Cleveland from Washington, D.C. They have a brief relationship before Terri goes home, leaving Joanna obsessed and, in a rash decision, moving to D.C. to be near her new love.

The book is written in the form of a journal, and Joanna’s entries grow more and more manic as she tries to regain Terri’s interest. Terri’s mixed signals don’t help matters: She tells Joanna she’s seeing someone else, but still meets with Joanna and leads her on.

Joanna, living in what amounts to be a flophouse for gay deadbeats, and with no support system in a new town, makes an effort to meet new women, and finds they all seem to know each other. As she can’t see that there might be someone better for her than Terri, her breakdown seems inevitable. It would be grim if it weren’t so very, very funny, and Gitlin’s unforgettable characters make this an unqualified, R-rated success.

Akron Beacon Journal
August 8, 2010