Calvin WalkerShould my parents have allowed me to watch Scream when it was released on VHS in the summer of 1997? Some might say no since I’d just turned 11, but the Horror genre was already a major player in my world.
From R. L. Stine’s Fear Street series, to Christopher Pike’s never-ending catalogue, and a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer, it felt natural to gravitate towards the dark, twisted side of media. For me, this wicked affinity ran rampant all year. When it comes to mainstream audiences, though, it should come as no surprise that interest in horror spikes in October.
Last spring, there was an abnormal surge of search activity due to Sinners, Ryan Coogler’s vampire thriller that generated close to $400M at the box office. There was even a 30% increase in Google searches on if vampires were real.
As a kid, you could not convince me they weren’t real. Before I fell hard for the slasher sub-genre, my heart belonged to those gothic creatures of the night. In my memory, the only Halloween costume I can remember making a repeat appearance is the vampire. Little did I know, there was a deep connection to my latent sexual identity and these blood-drinking mythical gods.
In 1988, when I was just 2 years old, Richard Dyer published ‘Children of the Night: Vampirism as Homosexuality, Homosexuality as Vampirism.’ This essay analyzed a range of vampire fiction and identified homoerotic motifs that touched on the need for secrecy and the fear of being outed.
Almost 40 years later, the need to lean on such subtleties have all but gone out the window. There’s also been progress in de-centering a queer character’s identity as the narrative’s main source of conflict. That couldn’t be more apparent in the following 5 novels you should absolutely consider for the year’s spookiest month.
The Secret Dinner by Raphael Montes
There’s nothing like the AIDS crisis to snuff out the joy of a young, Black, gay man, amirite?
That’s precisely what happens to Isaac, a sensitive young man who grew up suppressing so many parts of himself. Searching for a sense of freedom in Chicago, he begins to write his life’s story. This leads him on a journey back to his family roots in Arkansas. In the process, he’s forced to confront generational trauma. His path takes an unexpected turn when a discovery that could reveal long-buried truths or unravel the life he’s built for himself.
Isaac’s Song brings back beloved characters from Black’s Don’t Cry for Me and has been described as both poignant and sweeping.
Model Home by Rivers Solomon
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. Right away, bad things, scary things—strange, unexplainable, violent—began to happen in their house.
As adults, the siblings all escaped the horrors of home, leaving their parents alone back in Texas. But when news of their parents’ death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to the house with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present. Their parents did not die a “natural” death . . . but was it supernatural?
Carrying by Samantha Josephs
Meet Martha: perfect wife, perfect stepmother, perfect woman. She’s got an adoring husband who wants more kids with her, a loving stepdaughter who looks up to her, and a body to die for. She’s an absolute pro: Salon-quality blowouts at home? Done. Perfectly plated meals on the table every day? Effortless. Meticulously faked miscarriages so her husband won’t suspect the truth? Just hand over the Oscar now.
Martha is trans, so stealth even her family has no idea. She carved the woman she is out of the marble of a boy, and she’ll do whatever it takes to protect what she’s built. When a mysterious chronic illness and its debilitating symptoms threaten to upend her existence, she starts experimental treatments and gives in to her surprising, unsettling cravings. She’s even more shocked to discover that she’s undeniably, impossibly pregnant.
With her body changing outside of her control, Martha struggles to maintain the life she’s fought so hard to live while preparing for the motherhood she never thought she’d have.
Fabulous Bodies by Chuck Tingle
Poppy Stringer was born to be a star.
An aspiring fashion influencer by day, Poppy moonlights as a grave robber to make ends meet, wheeling and dealing dead bodies across Palm Springs.
When her hero, the flamboyant, piano-slamming rockstar Eddie Michaels, unexpectedly dies, Poppy gets a call to retrieve his body from the medical examiner’s office for a lucrative sum. It could be the last job she’ll ever need—if everything goes to plan. But the night’s delivery quickly veers off course when Eddie wakes up.
Now Poppy must fight for her life if she hopes to survive this blood-soaked joyride of carnage and extravagant entertainment.
On Sundays She Picked Flowers by Yah Yah Scholfield
When Judith Rice fled her childhood home, she thought she’d severed her abusive mother’s hold on her. She didn’t have a plan or destination, just a desperate need to escape. Drawn to the forests of southern Georgia, Jude finds shelter in a house as haunted by its violent history as she is by her own.
Jude embraces the eccentricities of the dilapidated house, soothing its ghosts and haints, honoring its blood-soaked land. And over the next thirteen years, Jude blossoms from her bitter beginnings into a wisewoman, a healer.
But her hard-won peace is threatened when an enigmatic woman shows up on her doorstep. The woman is beautiful but unsettling, captivating but uncanny. Ensnared by her desire for this stranger, Jude is caught off guard by brutal urges suddenly simmering beneath her skin. As the woman stirs up memories of her escape years ago, Jude must confront the calls of violence rooted in her bloodline.
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