Why "Waiting for Something Else" needs to be on your coffee table
- by Jack Chandler
Entertainment Writer
The Lambda Literary Awards are the Kentucky Derby of LGBTQ literature, and this year’s winners will be announced on June 12.
Martin Cloutier’s Waiting for Something Else is a finalist in the Gay Fiction category. While the competition is fierce (The Sunflower Boys is also in the running), you probably wouldn’t lose money betting Cloutier’s novel will at least place. (Horse-racing lingo for finishing in the top two.)
Frankly, Waiting for Something Else might very well win. It has a thoroughbred quality.
Cloutier came out of the gate with an unusual ambition: to write a genuinely funny literary novel.
He succeeded.
He introduces us to three characters who are literally waiting—as in working at a gourmet restaurant in Brooklyn, but also figuratively waiting for life to give them what they want. There’s James—tall, bald, formerly fat—who wants a domineering woman and has his eye on Sherry. Roger is openly gay, dates muscular go-go boys, but wants a meaningful relationship. He thinks James fits the bill. And Sherry, who is attracted to artists and married men, has had drunk sex with Roger and thinks she can straighten him out.
Here’s Roger’s opinion of his escapade with Sherry:
He let Sherry do all the work. For as friendly as the breasts looked with all their bouncy fullness, the vagina with its red folds and creases appeared rather angry. He remembered reading somewhere that you have to be more polite at the front door than the back. The whole apparatus seemed unnecessarily complicated—too many foyers and vestibules before the main entrance. Was this biology’s way of increasing anticipation—an endless list of opening acts before the main concert?
My sentiments exactly.
Most books that aim for funny settle for absurdity. Skippy Dies comes to mind. Cloutier achieves it through the setup of three people, each wanting someone else. I was reminded of one of my favorite Frasier episodes, “The Ski Lodge.”
Set up alone won’t carry a novel, and this is where Cloutier separates himself from the field. The best humor exposes the truths we spend our lives trying to hide.
On the subject of truths: yes, this book is funny, but that’s not why I recommend it. If you just want comedy, watch SNL. What you won’t find there, or even on my beloved Frasier, are characters so real they could be your frustrating coworkers—or a deep dive into the chicken-or-egg debate about human sexuality.
The comedy here takes you around the first two turns of the track. James’s reticence about his sexuality is what fuels the home stretch.
Here, Roger is presented as openly gay and fixed in his sexuality, despite his oopsie with Sherry. James, on the other hand, is a conundrum. He has only ever been with women and seems truly attracted to them. We’re right there while he ogles Sherry’s boobs.
James wants Sherry—until he doesn’t, until he settles on the “something else.”
I’ll be honest. As a preacher’s kid who tried damned hard to settle on the something else, this disturbed me, as in ranting-to-my-husband level frustration. It was my gentle husband who pointed out that Cloutier never pushes the argument that far. He leaves the question unanswered. Does James settle? Or fluidly change his orientation?
Here’s James contemplating this issue:
Some things, like a penis, could not be so easily accepted. To accept a penis required more than a minimal commitment. It wasn’t like a party invitation. You couldn’t just accept a penis one day and then cancel it the next. There were implications. Society demanded a choice. He needed to be branded with one of the LGBT letters. But why did it have to be like that? Why couldn’t sexuality be like someone’s income, impolite to mention and unethical to judge?
This—not the humor—is why you need to buy this book. Even if you don’t read it, you’re going to want it on your coffee table, so you can prove to your friends you can spot a thoroughbred when you see one.
The Gayly online. 8/21/26 @ 12:25 p.m. CST.