Hornito: My Lie Life

Softly lit, as if by a disco ball and a vintage Lava lamp, Mike Albo's rich and funny novel hinges on his protagonist and alter ego's visit home to suburban Springfield for Labor Day weekend, where he reminisces about his standard-issue American childhood and seeks a remedy for crabs, while obsessing about an unattainable trick of his named Eric, a dancer at Freon in Manhattan: "He is a human candy bar impulse buy--moving effortlessly and beautifully up there with a king-size Snickers down his white cutoffs." There is no plot to speak of in Hornito, but a few events occur to strike off sparks of recollection. The driving force is Albo's unquenchable libido, which leads him into the sex clubs of New York and the dismal local gay hangouts of his parents' hometown, just as it led him into satin shorts and eyeliner during his warped 1980s adolescence. Among the best gay books of 2000, Hornito speaks to the geeky and emotionally hungry boy in even the coolest man. --Regina Marler