Chuck Tingle is an important voice in the horror genre

Chuck Tingle writes horror with an understated, natural warmth. That may sound contradictory, but Tingle, who has built a huge online following through both his writing and his persona, is a deft user of one of the genre’s oldest tricks: give us characters we care about, then put them in danger. It’s an easy tactic for horror writers, but Tingle’s great gift is going deeper, letting us immerse ourselves not just in the lives of these characters, but in their hopes and dreams and the ways they relate to the terrible things that suddenly appear in their lives.

In other words, there is love in these pages, and that love makes the horror not only more haunting, but more real.

Bury your gaysTingle’s latest horror novel following the success of Camp Damascus last year, begins in a place we associate with deep cynicism: the Hollywood studio machine. Yet for all his time as a screenwriter in the story mines, Misha Byrne is not yet completely gripped by that pessimism, even in a world where artificial intelligence is taking over large parts of his industry and executives are constantly demanding change. Misha was just nominated for an Oscar for a short film he made, has a successful streaming series and a boyfriend he loves. Plus, he’s a human writer in an increasingly artificial game, and he seems to have some influence.

At least until a manager he thought was an ally makes him an unfortunate demand: He should kill the two gay leads of his streaming series just as their romance takes center stage. This, the manager assures Misha, is the right thing for the show, which popular thing for the show, but Misha, who as a child longed for the kind of romance novel he now writes, refuses to forget his homosexuality and hopes that a possible Oscar win might increase his influence and appeal enough that he won’t have to.

But before that can happen, Misha’s life is shattered by a series of encounters. It seems his own creatures – monsters from the horror films that made his name and reputation – are haunting him, and there are signs that they are more than just crazed fans in cosplay. If Misha wants to survive his own life, let alone Hollywood, he must get to the bottom of what is really happening, while also confronting his past and his future.

Tingle’s narrative unfolds through multiple means, from flashbacks to Misha’s childhood to scripted snippets of his present life, his own driving, witty first-person narration, all geared towards showing us a man in conflict with his own past, his own identity and, of course, his future as a creator. The horror seems to come from outside of Misha, of course, but Tingle is adept at showing us how much of that horror is rooted in certain fears that Misha himself was reluctant to confront, from his queer identity and how it might affect his hometown to his personal ties within the industry and, of course, his determination to give his characters what he feels they deserve. His voice is at the core of this story, and it is both strong and vulnerable, piercing Bury your gays with the kind of warmth we associate with a Chuck Tingle story.

But none of that will save you when the horror elements come, and when they do appear, they are unforgettable. While there are clear genre inspirations at work in the background – everything from X-Files To The ring—what stands out in Bury your gays are the monsters that seem to have sprung from Tingle’s imagination. He’s great at warm, human moments, yes, but he’s arguably even better at creating monsters and unleashing them on characters we’re genuinely afraid of, and here, with everything from a strange black lamb to an absolutely terrifying character named The smokerhe presents us with some of the scariest scenes I have seen in a horror novel so far this year.

All this, combined with some scary thoughts about AI and what happens when a creator is in conflict with his own creations (both literally and figuratively), solidifies Bury your gays as another triumph for Chuck Tingle. It’s scary, it’s funny, it’s bursting with vibrant humanity, and it’s the kind of book that will keep you up late into the night looking for monsters in every shadow. In other words, it’s the perfect summer horror novel, so don’t miss it.

Bury your gays is now available wherever books are sold.

Matthew Jackson is a pop culture writer and nerd for hire who write about entertainment for more than a decade. His writing about movies, television, comics, and more appears regularly on SYFY WIRE, Looper, Mental Floss, Decider, BookPage, and other outlets. He lives in Austin, Texas, and when he’s not writing, he’s usually counting down the days until Christmas.