Bury Your Gays

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.