Bury Your Gays

Starred review from April 15, 2024
Tingle (Camp Damascus) cements his place in horror with this gory romp, which doubles as a love letter to every queer kid who wished for TV characters like themselves and a sharply pointed warning about the state of entertainment and the rise of AI. Misha Byrne is a gay screenwriter hoping to make a career helming the queer shows and movies he wanted to see when he was growing up. He knows how to tell a good story, and he’s got the Oscar nod and a successful ongoing show to prove it. So when his studio executives tell him their algorithm says he has to kill off his lesbian lead characters to boost viewership, Misha refuses, despite the threat of cancellation and the undeniable success of the studio’s new AI-driven movie. He’s stressed, but holding firm, until a series of increasingly terrifying encounters with stalkers dressed as horror movie monsters he created for past projects shake his conviction. Someone is trying to scare him to death—and it’s his own stories he now has to survive. Tingle’s vivid, visceral storytelling combines with prescient insight into the corporate dynamics that rule mainstream media. The result is smart, subtle, and a bloody good time.

May 1, 2024
Self-publishing sensation Tingle burst onto the traditional publishing scene with one of the best books of 2023 (Camp Damascus), but his follow-up is even better. Misha, a semicloseted horror screenwriter, has built quite a career for himself over the last two decades, but when asked to kill off the female leads of his popular show right after they kiss, he refuses. However, the algorithm, which rules Hollywood, demands he obey, or else. With the help of his best friend and boyfriend, Misha becomes the unlikely hero of not only his own story but also that of the entire world, endangered by a powerful, insidious evil. Tingle's effortless narrative flows from an uneasy tone that steadily builds to full-on, existential terror, along the way taking readers on a highly entertaining, fast-paced ride, filled with thought-provoking satire, original monsters, and some of the most realistic characters they will encounter on any page, all to prove that love is real and horror itself is, at its core, a celebration of life. A book for anyone who likes the immersive, high-stakes thrillers of Blake Crouch or horror novels like A Light Most Hateful (2023), by Hailey Piper, or Horror Movie (2024), by Paul Tremblay.

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Starred review from May 1, 2024

Misha is a gay screenwriter working for a giant Hollywood conglomerate and celebrating his first Oscar nod, for a short film. When he refuses to kill off his queer characters to appease the corporation's profit algorithm, he becomes haunted--literally--by his movie monsters. As he's stalked by the creatures and the memories they represent, Misha must keep himself alive and his loved ones safe. Can he stay one step ahead of the algorithm to uncover and stop the source of the horrors? Tingle's (Camp Damascus) latest outing is another refreshingly original look at horror, this time mixed in with algorithmic art, commodification of identity, and coercive capitalism. His hallmark inventiveness with structure, trope, and genre come through clearly here and are balanced perfectly. Nods to fandoms that have experienced "buried gays" are sprinkled throughout the book, and love in all forms--platonic, romantic, and everything between--remains the way to beat evil. Terror comes as much from being forced into a stereotype as from being killed by a cinematic villain. VERDICT Captivating and creative, Tingle continues breathing new life into old tropes with a gory examination of art and the lives that fuel it.--Katherine Sleyko

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