Campy, clever, and creepy: a review of Bury Your Gays

You might think that a queer horror book entitled Bury Your Gays would be way to meta for its own good, but Chuck Tingle knows what he's doing. The author who wrote Trans Wizard Harriet Porber and the Bad Boy Parasaurolophus and Pounded in my Butt by My Own Butt is more interested in humor than overcooked metafictional snobbery.

I'm not saying there's no commentary in here at all. Bury Your Gays has plenty of good and extremely topical things to say about queer stories, Hollywood, AI, capitalism, and the process of artistic creation in general. It's on the nose, but I think it earns the right to be. It's a loud and campy book, and subtlety would honestly feel out of place. Additionally, despite the unsubtlety, it's still clever with the way various threads and ideas tie together.

For the most part, however, this novel isn't trying to be cerebral or meditative. What it's trying to do is offer fun horror, and it succeeds. While it may seem like a pretty big pivot from the fanfiction and gay erotica that Tingle used to write, it's not as different as you might think. Tingle likes satire, and is good at it, and it shows up across his entire body of work.

So what's this book actually about? You follow a gay writer named Misha who's being asked by executives and producers to kill off queer characters in a television show. When he refuses, things take a turn for the sinister. After all, Hollywood executives dislike it when writers don't do what they're told ... unless a writer going rogue proves profitable.

The power of Hollywood induces so much dread and claustrophobia in this book. At times, it feels like an actual horror movie, complete with suspenseful music playing in the background before introducing the next jump scare. Usually that kind of thing doesn't work for me; I'm generally of the opinion that literature as a medium is less inherently scary that film is, and horror novels are at their best when they're transgressive and visceral instead of trying (and often failing) to be frightening. However, in this book, the story manages to capture real fears about Hollywood and AI, and I genuinely felt the terror deep in my bones. (It also drew a lot of other emotions out of me. The final chapter actually made me tear up a bit. I won't spoil whether it was tears of joy or sadness.)

In short, if you're a horror fan, definitely check this one out. Also check it out if you're interested in the satirical meta commentary about queer tropes.

Before you impulse purchase this book, I do have two caveats. The first is that some of the side characters are underdeveloped. There's a whole arc around a closeted queer kid from Misha's childhood, and we just don't find out much about what happens to him. Misha's boyfriend and best friend are also a little flat, and they often only exist to serve certain plot needs. If you're the type of reader who cares about character work, then you have to really be willing to focus on Misha's journey alone.

The second caveat is that the prose, while evocative and effective, can be inconsistent and awkward. There are a ton of epithets for no reason. Everyone is referred to as "my friend" or "my boyfriend" instead of just using names and pronouns. It didn't really bother me, but I know it's a pet peeve of some readers, and if you're one of them, then proceed with caution.