Queer Horror?: Writing, Horror, and Fleshtrap

So if you go to Amazon and look for my horror novel Fleshtrap, you might notice that (at least as is true with the Kindle edition) it’s listed under the category Horror and the subcategory Gay & Lesbian Horror.  Which, you know, makes sense enough, I suppose. The protagonist, Casey Way, is a self-identifying gay man. He has a boyfriend, Joel Britton, and they live together. They carpool. They trade-off on domestic responsibilities. They lay around eating take-out in bed when nobody wants to cook or do dishes, or, you know, eat at a proper table.  This isn’t a spoiler; it’s in the first chapter, as Casey wakes up from a nightmare and steals Joel’s Manchster United jacket to go for a walk.  And I say that it isn’t a spoiler because…well, Casey being a gay man just isn’t that big of a deal.

Sure, it informs who he is. We’re all informed by our sexual identity, and obviously Casey wouldn’t be in the relationship that he is with Joel, for all of its bumps and bruises, if he wasn’t attracted to men. Even for that, it still doesn’t inform the narrative. Casey is gay because he’s gay, and everybody else is fine with it. His boss is fine with it. His sister’s fine with it. Even his therapist is fine with it. (No, wait, actually his therapist isn’t — but that’s a whole other kind of spoiler!)

What I’m saying is, we live in a very interesting time right now. Diversity and fair representation — be it of female characters, PoC characters, queer characters, disabled characters, and any/all intersections of these definitions — in mainstream media is a big issue that’s being debated in every corner of our popular culture. In the grand scheme of things, Casey being gay is a non-event. That’s because I wrote it that way. But I still find myself being asked all of these questions now that the book is out, about what “queer horror” really is, and where the book falls on that spectrum.

After some careful thought and deliberation, I’ve finally come up with a hard and fast answer.

I have no idea.

I guess my only answer is a question: What do you think makes a book queer? Is it a book with a queer protagonist? A book with a queer author? (In which case, this book is a double-whammy. But they don’t have a Double-Plus Gay subcategory so, you know, sorry.) But following that logic, does a book with a female protagonist or a female author qualify as a woman book? What about a book with a Pakistani protagonist? What if your protagonist is a lesbian Pakistani woman with MS? What do you call that book?

And to answer that question, I only have one answer.

You call it a book.

So, look, I don’t know if Fleshtrap is a queer book. I don’t even really know what that means, to be honest. I do know that it’s a horror story, about a guy who happens to be gay. Which is funny that he turned out the way he did, because in the original version of the story he was supposed to be estranged from his wife. Then I came up with Joel and he was a much better character who contributed more to the story, so I went in that direction instead. Take that as you will, I guess.