rock-ribbed

In 1997, the comedy “In & Out” did its shiny, star-studded best to mainstream the story of a closeted gay man in a rock-ribbed American community embracing his truth.

The daily newspapers, including the rock-ribbed conservative Los Angeles Times, lampooned Sinclair mercilessly.

I grew up in Lake View, New York, a rock-ribbed Republican suburb of Buffalo.

Of course, with the rock-ribbed conservatives to the chief justice’s right, there may be scant prospect of similar goodwill.

One question Heller plays with throughout the book is whether all this rock-ribbed, superior-feeling sense of the world is covering up for something — and whether we’re missing something important when we long to be saviors.