Bury Your Gays

Chuck Tingle, the author of Camp Damascus, has a new queer horror novel called Bury Your Gays. Tingle highlights the discrimination against fictional queer characters in a funny and thrilling horror story that takes place in Hollywood. The main character is Misha, a screenwriter for Harold Brothers, who writes for shows such as Devil’s Due which is about a demonic librarian (as a librarian this made me laugh). Misha visits the lot to meet with his boss Jack Hays who tells him that he needs to rewrite the ending of his current script because – according to the algorithm – people don’t want to see queer characters have a happy ending. Jack relents a bit and says there can be gay characters, but they have to die – Bury Your Gays. Misha refuses to make the changes, so Jack gives him an ultimatum. He’s got four weeks to rewrite the script or they’ll be taking him to court for breach of contract. Some of the creepy monsters Misha has created for shows and movies start to stalk him. On top of this, he’s been nominated for an Oscar. Misha turns to his best friend Tara and his boyfriend Zeke for help to figure out why these characters from his movies are following him. 

This action-packed story is mainly told in first-person from Misha’s perspective, however, we also get flashbacks to his abusive childhood and scenes written like a screenplay. I loved the commentary about horror stories and how they help us “explore dark places in a safe way”. Horror stories get a bad rap – they are about much more than the violence and the gore.

The characters are interesting, unique, and diverse with LGBTQIA+ representation for asexual, aromantic, bisexual, and gay people. Misha’s monsters are terrifying and come to life on the page. I loved the atmosphere, world-building, and writing style. Bury Your Gays has some of the best dialogue I’ve ever read. I didn’t want to put it down! I laughed, I cried, and I can’t wait to read more from Tingle. Bury Your Gays is a mysterious and haunting horror about the price of success, the complicated relationship between capitalism and trauma, the struggle to be authentic, and the power of love. I highly recommend this to fans of Paul Tremblay, Stephen King, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Monika Kim, Josh Malerman, T. Kingfisher, Johnny Compton, The X-Files and Fringe.