Review

Everyone who checks in to Kyle's welcoming B&B, set in a fictional tourist town on the north shore of Long Island, has drama-queen issues. Proprietor Kyle, steadfast and romantic, longs for Mr. Right. Queeny best friend Richard has an acid tongue and a libido in overdrive. Cocky Eduardo is a tough queer Latino kid tossed into the street by his parents. Drop-dead gorgeous Brad is a deeply closeted minor-league baseball hero. And straight-acting Nick is a brooding firefighter whose life is shadowed by the attacks of 9/11. These are a few of the flawed but empathic characters who pass through Kyle's Bed & Breakfast, a comic-strip collection with the heft of a comic novel. Fox ably tackles serious topics: gay fatherhood, fear of AIDS, love and commitment, and locker-room homophobia. But this engaging compilation of the strip's first five years (1998 to 2003) is at heart a witty soap opera where sexual couplings abound, everyone has muscles for days - and a scintilla of soul - and the plot twists and character kinks are delightfully intricate.

Richard Labonte, Books to Watch Out For