Chuck Tingle is famously (and infamously) recognized for self-publishing absurdist erotica that just about at all times skews queer. Despite ridiculous titles like Good-looking Sentient Meals Kilos My Butt And Turns Me Homosexual: Eight Tales Of Scorching Meals and Not Pounded By Bi Erasure As a result of My Present Hetero-Presenting Relationship Does Not Invalidate My Queerness, Tingle’s work stays steadfastly earnest, which continues along with his newly-written horror story. Camp Damascus is Tingle’s first full-length, historically revealed novel, and it expands on the tongue-in-cheek themes of queerness and survival he first wrote about with 2021’s Straight.
Up within the mountains and nestled within the pastoral forests of Montana, Camp Damascus, the evangelical conversion camp, looms over the city of Neverton. Rose Darling, a younger girl who’s simply getting into self-awareness and womanhood, has by no means been to Camp Damascus, however she is aware of individuals who’ve frolicked there. She picks out faces from her church group within the cheerful advertisements that play on the tv. However no one, not even her associates, appear to need to speak about what occurs at Camp Damascus.
What Tingle does all through this e-book is ready up expectations after which inside the exact same chapter (typically on the identical web page), rips them to shreds, leaving the our bodies bloody and gasping within the wreckage. Camp Damascus is a sometimes-violent, often-thrilling e-book that plunges its total arm into the open chest cavities of church-blessed corpses, looking out round for hearts and squeezing. Inside the recognizable trauma of non secular expectation, familial rejection, and assembly somebody on the fallacious time, there may be an underlying supernatural strangeness that feels proper at dwelling inside Tingle’s absurdist sensibilities. He by no means pushes the envelope of both horror or queerness an excessive amount of, however the premise and execution are fast-paced, ingenious, and evocative.
As Rose tries to determine why she’s all of the sudden coughing up mayflies, her father tells her that she’s by no means had a bed room door, her mom continues to play judgmental evangelical-themed redemption video games as they stroll by neighborhoods, and the church-appointed therapist doesn’t appear to know a lot in any respect. Via the primary act, the Darling household trades scripture for sentiment as Rose is haunted by a demon who solely appears to look when she has impure ideas–when she thinks a couple of woman’s chortle or spends a bit of too lengthy staring on the fairly stranger sitting on the sphere. When she realizes that a few of her reminiscences are lacking, she breaks into Dr. Smith’s information and finds her identify on the checklist of children who attended Camp Damascus, Rose turns into obsessive about discovering the reality.
Rose is an extremely compelling narrator who surrounds herself with discovered household and freedom fighters. She is intentionally written as autistic in a method that feels instantly recognizable and comprehensible, even for folk who should not on the spectrum. Her fixed refrains, her curiosity, her obsessions, all of those little hallmarks of her persona make her very sympathetic. She is, nevertheless, a comparatively easy protagonist. Whereas she is pulled alongside by the plot (primarily pushed by homophobic persecution, gaslighting, and literal embodiments of evil), there may be little or no grey space to her story. She is an abused, queer autistic woman, and there may be not a lot performed to complicate her good man standing.
Tingle is extremely exact when depicting real-world horrors; using faith as a cudgel for obedience, the emotional manipulation of a household who doesn’t need you to be queer, the battle to reconcile the reality of your self with the picture that folks have of you. These scenes resonate in a reader, deftly turning the mundane horrific, and undermining the established order that everybody round Rose appears to attempt for. It’s a improbable sabotage, and permits us to totally assist Rose’s selections to vary, even when there’s a price.
Whereas there are numerous moments that really feel designed to drag at your heartstrings— particularly in case you’re queer and have lived expertise that aligns with the type of spiritual abuse and familial gaslighting that this e-book depicts—there may be an underlying restraint to Camp Damascus. It’s intelligent and terrifying, however with Tingle’s earnest dedication to completely satisfied endings, even when there’s a price, Camp Damascus is a really mild type of horror that refuses to let the dangerous guys win in any vital capability. The horror and ache exist right here, however neither push the boundaries of queer horror. It additionally lacks the nimble and frenetic mania of Tingle’s Straight, a novella that was very a lot with out the type of hesitation that conventional publishing might need imposed on Camp Damascus. The e-book is tame and its tooth filed down, if it had any to start with.
The sincerity, virtually saccharine in its ending, can also be Camp Damascus’ biggest power. Tingle has crafted a e-book that’s straightforward to take pleasure in as a result of it’s direct, single-minded, and deeply displays the queer experiences of its writer and predominant character. It’s neat and tidy, and under no circumstances what I anticipated from Tingle. Whereas there may be some messiness, I drastically loved the entire e-book and would fortunately suggest the novel.
Camp Damascus exemplifies a horror story with an uncomplicated ethical compass, making it straightforward to devour, and a transparent extension of the positivity and surprise that Tingle himself radiates on-line. Whereas Camp Damascus loses a few of the bizarre within the course of, it’s a delightfully tingly e-book: simply scary sufficient to be horror, however not so stomach-churning that it might flip folks off the writing. Turning folks on is, the truth is, what its writer does greatest.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle is offered for purchase now.
Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and all the pieces it’s worthwhile to learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.
Trending Merchandise
