I Would Love to Call this The Summer of Horror…

… but it was 45 degrees here yesterday. Which would be fine with me if I knew nothing about climate change because I absolutely despise being hot but I do and so, have to admit is a very bad thing. Technically, however, it is June (happy LGBTQIA+ wrath month, all) and I am reading a lot of really excellent horror of both the fictional and non-fiction variety at the moment because every season is spooky season if you’re like the cast of Crimson Peak during shooting breaks.

Here we go:

My Ex, The Antichrist by Craig DiLouie (Run for it, 7/1)

Horror is many things but “fun” isn’t a word often used to describe it. My Ex is fun. It may seem odd to say that about a book as bloody as this one but praise where it’s due, comedy-horror is hard and DiLouie nails the balance between humor and terror perfectly in this story about naive-suburban-girl-turned-punk-rocker, Lily Lawlor, who falls for gorgeous, talented Drake Morgan. In her defense, she doesn’t know he’s the antichrist until after their band’s performances start inducing audience fuge states that segue into violent riots.

I’m not typically a fan of epistolary novels and their close cousins but in this particular case, as with Daisy Jones and the Six (and it’s not lost on me that’s another book about a band), it works well when an author wants to keep the urgency of the first person voice while exploring multiple points of view. DiLouie gives us a collection of barely functional weirdoes who can barely tie their shoes but they’re loyal and once they find their family, they love them hard, despite constantly threatening to leave. The members of The Shivers are people you can absolutely believe would have your back in the apocalypse. Probably. Yess, the book has a great plot but it is a character driven story that wouldn’t be nearly as engaging if the people living it were interchangeable or place holders. These are people you get to know over the course of events, through their rambling, commentary, and via snarky asides. Big personalities all, and so much more interesting, relatable, and engaging for it.

I also prefer the insidious interpretation of the antichrist DiLouie chooses to stay with for most of My Ex. Of course, the apocalypse is ultimately meant to escalate to Revelation levels, but capturing people with music? Worming your way into their brain using endorphins and dopamine and serotonin, making them not only love what you create but need it the way they need sex and drugs, and then snapping your fingers to take it all away and incite them to violence? To control them? To make them your minions? You’ll see a dragon coming. You’ll probably notice fire and brimstone. But that? That to so much scarier. And convincing people to help you? People who have never been loved before? Never been adored? That’s its own kind of drug. One that makes for a much more interesting story.

I enjoyed My Ex, The Antichrist so much, I immediately put as many of DiLouie’s books as the Carnegie Library system had on hold and am currently listening to The Children of Red Peak, which centers around the survivors of a doomsday cult and the mysterious disappearance of more than 100 fellow cult members’ bodies from the scene of a mass murder/suicide without a trace in less than 24 hours. As someone with a BA in religion and a Masters in academic theology, I’m always here for a good scary story featuring the antichrist, doomsday cults, or both, especially when they play with the gothic device of is it supernatural or are people just horrible. I’ll make sure to review Red Peak when I finish.

My Ex, The Antichrist: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780316578189

The Children of Red Peak: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780316428132

Daisy Jones and the Six: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9781524798642

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy (Penguin)

For those of you who don’t know, I was a nurse for fifteen years so I do read a fair number of biology/microbiology/pathogen books. Rabid, however, was my first cultural history of a virus and it was super interesting. What exactly is the cultural history of a virus? Well, there is some medical information in it to give the reader of a basic understanding of how rabies is transmitted and how the infection works because that’s important to how it’s understood in a cultural context (rabies, for example, is the only disease that humans have understood since its inception, was transmitted by animals and primarily, until relatively recently, by dogs) but the book is primarily concerned with how rabies left its mark on humanity through time in ways as varied as: the impact it had on how animals, especially dogs, were treated; which strata of society kept dogs as pets; which kinds of dogs were considered proper pets; how rabies influenced vocabulary; the ways in which it was represented in literature; literary metaphors created to manage fear of rabies (including, possibly: vampires, werewolves, and zombies); the opening and closing or borders; commerce; vaccine development; vaccination standards; the anti-science origins of the anti-vaxx movement; the development of infectious disease surveillance systems; and so much more.

I’m fascinated. I kept texting random tidbits to people. Did you know, for instance, that in the late 90s, the infectious disease people at John’s Hopkins stropped Edgar Allen Poe’s medical records of identifying features, resubmitted it to grand rounds, and he was diagnosed with rabies rather than death due to alcohol withdrawal? His symptoms match the former much more closely than the later and he may not remember having been bitten due to the gap between initial infection and manifestation of symptoms.

I know, right?

Fascinating.

I’m waiting for a cultural history of TB to come off hold. I’ll let you know if it’s equally as interesting. I’m sure it will be.

Rabid: https://bookshop.org/a/56337/9780143123576

In Case You Read This by Edward Underhill (Quill Tree Books)

At the beginning of In Case You Read This, one of the MCs, Arden, one of the main characters, is reminiscing about sitting in his mother’s lap while she plays piano and names The Beatles, Carole King, and Ani DiFranco as the list of musicians she covers. He is seventeen. I am 47 and said to a friend who is the same age as me, “I don’t see how that list fits. It should either be the first two and a different third or the second and third and a different first.” And she said, “It does. If you’re seventeen now, they’re all old.”

But I read the rest of the book anyway and despite that very painful insult, I adored it.

A modern missed connection story. A sweet romance between two trans boys headed in opposite directions, geographically and in life, both of them searching for an anchor in a world that’s tossing them around against their wills when all they’re asking for is home.

This is a book about finding queer joy. We need those right now. Our queer kids need them right now. Fighting is important. It’s so, so important. But fighting is also hard. We olds, we know what we’re fighting for. We’ve done it before. Our kids? They don’t. They grew up differently and I’m glad. But now, it’s time for them to learn and this is how we teach them. We teach them that no one gets to question who the know themselves to be. No one gets to question who they know themselves to love. That California, Illinois, or Michigan, we’ll be there with them, supporting them while they walk or bike or drive or go birding or fight about which movies to watch (one of them better be But I’m a Cheerleader, Brian).

In case you read this, Edward Underhill, thanks for doing what you do. I can’t wait to give In Case You Read This to my queer kiddo for their birthday. I hope they already know all of those things but it never hurts to tell them again.

Next up: Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian and Walk Like a Girl by Prabal Gurgung