Chuck Tingle is famously (and infamously) identified 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 Sizzling 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 lady 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 person, not even her mates, appear to need to discuss what occurs at Camp Damascus.
What Tingle does all through this e-book is ready up expectations after which inside the exact same chapter (generally 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 round for hearts and squeezing. Inside the recognizable trauma of non secular expectation, familial rejection, and assembly somebody on the fallacious time, there’s an underlying supernatural strangeness that feels proper at residence 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 abruptly 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 way of neighborhoods, and the church-appointed therapist doesn’t appear to know a lot in any respect. By the primary act, the Darling household trades scripture for sentiment as Rose is haunted by a demon who solely appears to seem when she has impure ideas–when she thinks a couple of woman’s snicker or spends slightly too lengthy staring on the fairly stranger sitting on the sphere. When she realizes that a few of her recollections are lacking, she breaks into Dr. Smith’s information and finds her identify on the listing 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 means that feels instantly recognizable and comprehensible, even for people who will not be on the spectrum. Her fixed refrains, her curiosity, her obsessions, all of those little hallmarks of her character make her very sympathetic. She is, nonetheless, a comparatively easy protagonist. Whereas she is pulled alongside by the plot (primarily pushed by homophobic persecution, gaslighting, and literal embodiments of evil), there’s little or no grey space to her story. She is an abused, queer autistic woman, and there’s not a lot carried out to complicate her good man standing.
Tingle is extremely exact when depicting real-world horrors; the usage of faith as a cudgel for obedience, the emotional manipulation of a household who doesn’t need you to be queer, the wrestle 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 try for. It’s a unbelievable sabotage, and permits us to completely assist Rose’s choices to alter, even when there’s a price.
Whereas there are a lot of moments that really feel designed to drag at your heartstrings— particularly should you’re queer and have lived expertise that aligns with the form of spiritual abuse and familial gaslighting that this e-book depicts—there’s an underlying restraint to Camp Damascus. It’s intelligent and terrifying, however with Tingle’s earnest dedication to joyful endings, even when there’s a price, Camp Damascus is a really gentle form 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 form of hesitation that conventional publishing might need imposed on Camp Damascus. The e-book is tame and its enamel filed down, if it had any to start with.
The sincerity, virtually saccharine in its ending, can be Camp Damascus’ best energy. 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 creator and fundamental character. It’s neat and tidy, and by no means what I anticipated from Tingle. Whereas there’s some messiness, I vastly 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, in reality, what its creator does finest.
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle is out there for buy now.
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