Plain and Normal

**From Amazon.com:** In his first novel in five years James Wilcox returns to the wonderfully manic and humane comedy that first brought him attention in the classic MODERN BAPTISTS. Lloyd Norris is slouching towards middle-age. Recently out of the closet, he knows it's time to devote himself to finding the love and companionship that have long eluded him. But his search is complicated by his exuberance ex-wife (whom he married in high school after she found herself pregnant by the football captain and with who he still shares a cozy home), who is having an affair with his former boss; by his secretary, a steely matron determined to take his prospects in hand; by his ex-wife's meddlesome new housemate, a gas meter reader and synchronized swimmer; by the two elderly men whom Norris attempts to help through a charity but want nothing to do with him; and by the circle of eccentric gay men who involve him in an exasperating series of romantic entanglements. The result is a dizzying funny book about the awesome power of our need for connection.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of LGBTQ+, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.