The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark by Warren Wagner

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Ghoulish Books

Genre: Apocalypse/Disaster, Zombie

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Gay man author and main characters, main characters with AIDS

Content Warnings: Animal Death, Child Death, Death, Drug Use/Abuse, Homophobia, Illness, Medical Procedure, Slurs, Suicide (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

In The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark, an HIV positive gay man must leave the relative safety of his cabin in the woods to brave the zombie apocalypse and find the medication he needs to stay alive.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

I was born during the beginning of the AIDS outbreak, during which my mom lost many of her gay friends. I remember the deep-rooted fear of AIDS that existed during my childhood. In grade school, we attended assemblies about the dangers of AIDS and how it was spread. There were public service ads about AIDS on every TV station. Parents wore red ribbons. As a queer teen I mourned the loss of an entire generation of gay and bisexual men.

One of the doctors I work with through my hospital, a gay man in his eighties who was one of the first physicians to treat AIDS patients, told me about the weekly funerals he attended. No one cared that gay men were dying of a mysterious illness during the conservative Regan administration. Little research was done on the epidemic. This doctor was one of the few who treated AIDS patients back then, using his knowledge of pharmacology to create a treatment regimen through off-label uses of already existing drugs. Of course, he couldn’t openly advertise his services due to the stigma in the medical community, so his patients found him through a whisper network and would visit him under the guise of getting a routine physical.

The Only Safe Place Left is the Dark is a unique zombie apocalypse novella about the AIDS epidemic. The cover of book is meant to invoke the iconic Silence=Death AIDS design from the late 1980s (a poster Quinton keeps in his Cabin). The title of the story comes from a quote in the play The Destiny of Me by writer and activist Larry Kramer, who is best known for co-founding the grassroots political group the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).  In the first chapter of the book, Wagner references a New York Times article from July 3, 1981 entitled Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals. The article discusses an outbreak of Kaposi's Sarcoma in New York and San Francisco, a form of cancer that can form lesions on the skin and in the mouth. It wasn't yet known, but this sub-type of KS was caused by the immune suppression from some of the first HIV cases in the country.

Wagner’s zombie virus (if it even is a virus) is particularly terrifying because its victims, referred to as “The Afflicted,” are still awake and aware of what’s happening to them and powerless to stop it. They can feel themselves rotting and falling apart, even being eaten by flies. The zombies don’t want to hurt anyone but are completely unable to control their hunger, so they’ll scream warnings to their victims and plead for forgiveness as they tear them apart. Most disturbingly, they’ll beg uninfected humans to kill them. I suspect the Wagner’s zombies are loosely based on AIDS victims, as zombies are often an allegory for infectious disease. In her journal article Attack of the Living Dead Virus: The Metaphor of Contagious Disease in Zombie Movies English professor Cecilia Petretto explains that, “Much of our fear lies within the nature of disease itself… Disease, ugly as death, has its association with evil stemming back to the Black Plague.” What was known about AIDS was largely based on misconception, and AIDS victims were shunned and regarded as dangerous, much like the Hollywood zombies. In 1986, an article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association about AIDS was entitled Night of the Living Dead II: Slow Virus Encephalopathies and AIDS. Dr. Arthur Fournier, who encountered his first AIDS patient in 1979 while working with Miami's Haitian community, compared the virus to "the zombie curse." Before the advent of active antiretroviral therapy (ART), an AIDS diagnosis was often a death sentence. In that way AIDS patients were like the living dead, dying but not truly dead as their bodies were slowly destroyed and they wasted away. Wagner even describes them as “Waiting for a cure. Waiting for the end. They weren’t dead yet, but they weren’t alive either. They were zombies.”

From the New York Historical Society

Kept alive for 26 years by his antiretroviral medication, Quinton is one of the few humans who survived the zombie apocalypse--survived being the operative word, as he’s not really living, just surviving. He’s all but given up on love and compassion or anything ever getting better. His love for his deceased boyfriend, Frankie, brought him so much pain he’s now become a gruff loner. It’s safe to say Quinton may also be suffering from survivor’s guilt, as both he and his boyfriend were HIV positive but he survived while Frankie died. Worse, Frankie died when Quinton wasn’t there. The story switches between Quinton’s memories of Frankie’s last days and the present.

While out scavenging for more antiretroviral, Quinton meets Billy, a fellow gay man who’s managed to survive the apocalypse and is also HIV positive. But while Quinton has become cold, Billy still openly cares for others, which Quinton sees as a liability. Billy also believes in working together and the importance of community, while Quinton prefers to avoid other people. We learn that one of the reasons Billy has stayed alive so long is because those who are HIV positive are immune to the zombie virus. I thought this was an interesting twist, as outside of The Last of Us, Cooties, and Blood Quantum I’ve never seen a human with a natural immunity to Zombies in media. AIDS ravages the immune system, yet for some reason protects Quinton and Billy from turning into Afflicted. Being the kind of person who reads science articles about theoretical zombie biology, I did want to know how it all worked, but honestly an explanation isn’t important to the narrative.  

I had a few nitpicks when it came to Billy, a Black character. While he was written well, “Black” was not capitalized when describing him. When referring to race, Black should always be capitalized. Billy was also described as having dreadlocks. As far as I know Billy was not a Rastafarian, therefore his hairstyle should be referred to as locs, not dreadlocks. While these examples are relatively minor issues, it does highlight the importance of doing your research and using sensitivity readers when writing about groups different than your own.

Wagner’s writing is very spartan; there are no grandiloquent descriptions or deep introspections. Instead, he gets his point across without the need for flowery adjectives or metaphors. The only part where this proved an issue for me was when it came to Quinton and Billy’s relationship, which felt very rushed. Otherwise, I appreciated Wagner’s straight-to-the-point style. It’s not often we get a new take on Zombies, but Wagner’s Afflicted managed to add a whole new level of horror to the undead. The history of AIDS is seamlessly interwoven, never forced, throughout the narrative. Wagner uses horror fiction to not only educate readers in a way that feels natural and respectful, but to capture the feelings of despair no doubt felt by many during the AIDS epidemic. The message is clear. Having AIDS may feel bleak, and every day is a fight for survival, but even amongst all the horror there is always love and hope.

Portrait of Lysbeth : A Gothic Novella by Rama Santa Mansa

Formats: Digital

Publisher: Lingeer Press

Genre: Demon, Gothic, Historic Horror

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Black (African American) main character and author, minor gay character

Takes Place in: Sleepy Hollow, NY

Content Warnings: Antisemitism, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Childbirth, Death, Forced Captivity, Homophobia, Kidnapping, Medical Procedures, Oppression, Pedophilia, Physical Abuse, Racism, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sexism, Sexual Abuse, Slurs, Slut-Shaming, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Xenophobia (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

The year is 1676. We meet Lysbeth Luanda, a second-generation African freedwoman in New York, the former Dutch colony seized by the English, who, in a mere decade, have passed more cruel and oppressive restrictions on the free African community already living in the colony.After being orphaned at age 13, Lysbeth is forced to restart life all on her own––while working as a tavern waitress in Dutch and German-owned taverns along the banks of the Delaware and Hudson rivers. In this multinational milieu, she learns cosmopolitan skills and street philosophy from lovable lowlifes, brash buccaneers, African dreamers, indigenous heroines, and globetrotting Scandinavians. Lysbeth eventually finds a mentor in a Sephardi Jewish medical doctor from Curaçao, under whom she studies surgery and anatomy. As the gloomy autumn season begins in 1676, the gruesome murders of three European women, by an unknown assailant in the isolated village of Sleepy Hollow, shocks the whole of New York. Lysbeth's mentor convinces the New York High Sheriff to appoint Lysbeth to go investigate the victims’ inexplicable cause of death and bring back a written coroner's report. After an initial frosty reception by the villagers of Sleepy Hollow, Lysbeth gains new allies who assist her in her investigation.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

The Portrait of Lysbeth is set in Sleepy Hollow, but don’t expect mentions of the Headless Horseman or Ichabod Crane in this book. This story takes place about 100 years before the Revolutionary War and centers around Lysbeth, a free born Black woman, sent to investigate a serial killer (although that term wasn’t coined until the 20^th century) in Sleepy Hollow, New York.

Lisbeth Anthonijsen, was a real person born around 1650 into the free Black community of New Amsterdam (what is now New York City). She started working as a servant for white colonists at a young age. In June 1661 she was accused of stealing wampum from the house where she was employed and the court ordered her to be beaten with a rod as punishment. In the winter of 1663, Lisbeth was spotted running away from a housefire at the Cregier household where she was employed. She was blamed for starting the fire and the court sentenced her to be enslaved by the Cregier family. Young Lisbeth was never given a chance. Mansa’s mission, as she puts it, was to get justice for Lisbeth by writing The Portrait of Lysbeth. She did a ton of research for this book, and it really adds to the story. I appreciate the time and effort Mansa put in to creating the setting and her main character, Lysbeth.

The fictional Lysbeth Luanda is an educated freed woman who becomes an indentured servant at the age of 13, after the death or her parents. She’s forced to work as a tavern waitress for the next 22 years, where she learns about the world from her diverse clientele.  Eventually, Lysbeth makes her way back to New Amsterdam where she apprentices for a Sephardic Jewish doctor, who sends her to Sleepy Hollow to act as coroner.

Some parts of the book are written in third person present perfect tense, which I felt was an interesting, if uncommon, choice. It’s fine, it just took a little while to get used to. It also jumps around quite a bit, from Lysbeth’s childhood to her time studying under the physician then back to the murder investigation. It can get a little confusing. But once I got used to it, the story flowed much more smoothly. I found the more fanciful elements genuinely creepy, like when a maid becomes possessed and chases Lysbeth through the house. The entire murder investigation has an eerie feeling, and not just because of the way the townsfolk stare at her. There seem to be things lurking in the woods, things Lysbeth, as a woman of science, refuses to believe in.

 I appreciated how Mansa not only avoids common racist literary tropes but makes a point to subvert them. In the beginning of the book, Mansa describes an unpleasant white man’s complexion as “milk cream.” I was amused to see, for the first time, a white person’s skin compared to food, something that routinely happens to Black characters written by white authors. It was also a nice change of pace to not have the color black associated with evil, but with spiritual strength and protection from evil. This is seen both is Lysbeth’s horse and the spirit wolf that protects her. Instead, Lysbeth believes that it is white animals that are to feared as they lack the spiritual protection of blackness. I also liked that the enslaved Africans were referred to as “enslaved,” rather than “slaves.” A seemingly small change, but to me a powerful one. By calling someone a slave, their identity is reduced to their circumstance. It dehumanizes them. An enslaved person is a person first, who has had slavery forced upon them.

In the book, both Native and African characters were referred to by their nations and not all lumped into the same group. For example, Lisbeth’s father is Kongolese, a people originally found in what is modern day northern Angola. The man who gave Lysbeth her witch gun is Mbundu. It was also refreshing to see Native history, which is often erased, acknowledged in the story, such as the Wampanoag leader Metacom (also known by the English name King Philip) defending his lands from the Puritans and the Moravian massacre. However, the Native representation did leave me questioning some of the author’s choices. There’s a rather brutal description of the 1643 Pavonia massacre, where the Dutch invaded what is now called Manhattan and massacred scores of Lenape people. I appreciate that it’s made clear that the settlers are living on stolen land (Lenapehoking) and that attention is brought to Native history, however, I felt weird about having a non-Native author write about Native trauma. If this were a white author doing it, it would be a more clear-cut example of exploitation of a marginalized group’s suffering. White people have been stealing from and exploiting Natives for hundreds of years, even though it’s not always done maliciously. As Debbie Reese, a Nambé Owingeh Pueblo scholar and educator, explains on her blog American Indians in Children’s Literature:

“…the history of White people taking from Native people is also filled with White people who befriend us because they have found themselves living in or near our communities.

Of that latter group, I wish they could form those friendships without saying "look at me and my Native friend." Or, "look at the good I do for my Native friends!" Or, "I worked with them and they asked me to write this story about them." Or, "I taught their kids and I learned from them and so, I am able to write books about them that you should buy because I know what I'm talking about." Or, "Look! My book has a note inside from my Native friend or colleague. You can trust what you read in my book."

They mean well. But I wish they could see past their good intentions. What they're doing is exploitation.”

But Rama Santa Mansa isn’t white. She is a Black woman who wants to use her book to honor the untold stories of marginalized groups in what is now called the United States, but is that enough to give her a pass? Does her race make the story less problematic? It’s clear that Mansa did her best to portray the Lenape’s plight with respect, and wanted to include them as the first inhabitants of what is now called New York. There’s no colonialism being enforced, as Mansa is a Black author. She also did a significant amount of research for her book, but it left me wondering if she had reached out to Lenape or other Native scholars when writing it. There are certainly no Native books listed in her bibliography, no Native professors that she thanks in the acknowledgement, not even a reference to Indian 101 for writers.

I feel like at the very least a Native sensitivity reader would have been warranted. As Debbie Reese writes in her criticism of Justina Ireland’s book Dread Nation (another historic novel by a Black author), “It became clear to me that the reason her book fails in its representations of Native peoples is because she relied heavily on archival research. The "primary sources" she used are items in government archives--that are heavily biased.” This underlines the importance of using Native sources when discussing Native issues in addition to actually speaking to Native people. It’s also serves as a good reminder that just because a writer belongs to one marginalized group, it doesn’t mean they are qualified to write about another.

Despite the issues mentioned above I found the book overall enjoyable, with a highly detailed and well-researched setting and a strong Black woman protagonist. 

Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology edited by Aquino Loayza

Formats: Print, digital

Publisher: Third Estate Books

Genre: Body Horror, Folk Horror, Myth and Folklore, Psychological Horror, Sci-Fi Horror, Slahser/Killer

Audience: Adult/Mature

Diversity: Autistic characters and authors, trans, two-spirit, agender and non-binary characters and authors, gay characters, asexual author and characters, Mexican American author and character, Latinx authors, biracial Filipino and Taiwanese author, Afro-Indigenous author

Content Warnings: Ableism, Alcohol Abuse, Animal Death, Bullying, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, Eating Disorder, Gaslighting, Gore, Illness, Medical Torture/Abuse, Mental Illness, Physical Abuse,  Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Harm, Suicide, Torture, Transphobia, Verbal/Emotional Abuse, Violence (Highlight to view)

Blurb:

Deep in the recesses of our minds are twisted realities that so closely mirror our own. In these pages, our nightmares are laid bare, made to manifest. There is no waking up; there is no going back once you fall into the tapestry of terrors that await. Are you ready? From courteous neighbors gone awry to the burning brightness of everlasting daylight comes Spectrum: An Autistic Horror Anthology reflective of the vast array of neurodivergent artists in our community and the things that keep them up in the night, the things they can’t look away from. Don’t Blink.

I received this product for free in return for providing an honest and unbiased review. I received no other compensation. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.

Unfortunately, to review this, I do have to address some of the drama surrounding it. Anyone in the horror book sphere has probably heard it and it might turn some folks off this amazing anthology. However, you may not have heard about how Third Estate Books addressed it, and you shouldn’t pass on this book just because of a few bad apples.

One of the anthology’s original authors, Zach Rosenberg, was revealed to have a history of harassing and bullying women and femme identifying people. Writer and editor Evelyn Freeling details the harassment she received from Zach Rosenberg here. After Rosenberg posted a non-apology the next day Mattie Lewis shared her own negative experience with the author. Shortly afterward it was revealed that one of the editors of the anthology, Freydis Moon, had been impersonating a Latinx person to sell their books and bullying others online. You can find details of the Freydis Moon controversy here. Third Estate Books released statements that both Moon and Rosenberg had been removed from Spectrum and that they would have no place on any other projects moving forward. Therefore, I would still recommend this book, as the publisher has taken steps to ensure the safety of everyone involved and removed anyone problematic. Now, on to the review!

I was happy to see that many of the authors and characters in the book were trans, agender, or non-binary (not surprising since trans and gender diverse folks are up to six times more likely to be autistic). There was also some BIPOC representation with Asian, Latinx, and Afro-Indigenous authors, though I would have liked to have seen more. The stories were a very interesting mix. Some were straightforward and followed a classic story structure, while others felt more like stream of consciousness writing and focused more on  the poetic words used than forming a coherent plot (Survive Lot 666, Neighborly, and Discourses of the Seven Headed Monkey come to mind). But both styles worked well. A few of my favorites were Freedom was a Flaying by Onyx Osiris, Curse the Darkness by Die Booth, and The Sun Approaches Every Summer by Akis Linardos. The first of these stories was a violent revenge story where the bullies get violently massacred by the Aztec flayed god, Xipe Totec. I love revenge stories, and this one was particularly satisfying and twisted with a nice nod to the author’s heritage. Booth’s story was more of a “be careful what you wish for” tale, a genre of story I also greatly enjoy. The Sun Approaches Every Summer was particularly unique where a man with magical abilities slowly watches the town he lives in die because the sun is getting too close. As the townspeople fear witches, he’s forced to mask, hiding both his autism and his magical abilities. It reminded me of the Twilight episode The Midnight Sun, except in this story the protagonist is the only one immune to the heat due to his magic and is eventually the only one left alive.

The last story in the anthology, Different by Ashley Lezak, is one of only two in which autism is central to the story. In it, a little autistic girl named Abigail is “cured” by her parents who want a “normal” child.  One of ASAN’s (the Autistic Self Advocacy Network) core beliefs is that “autism cannot and should not be cured.” One thing many allistic and non-disabled people don’t seem to grasp is that Autism is part of who a person is and eliminating that would fundamentally change who they are. As Andrew Pulrang explained in an article for Forbes entitled What Do Disabled People Mean When We Say We Don’t Want A Cure? ,"Life without disabilities may at times have its attractions. It’s something that can be interesting, even fun to speculate about. But since it would often fundamentally change who we are, it’s not always a 100% attractive prospect." The desire to “cure” autism is similar to the appeal of gay conversion therapy. Parents who can’t love their children as they are try to change them to be more “normal,” someone they can accept. This is what makes Lezak’s short story so frightening: the idea that not only can parents not love and accept their child as they are, but that they would fundamentally change her as a person without her consent. And while the procedure Ashley undergoes is fictional, it’s not too far removed from the lobotomies performed on unwilling patients until the 1970s to change their personalities and even sexual orientation.

The other one is Safe Food by Xochilt Avila, in which a teen named Cedar struggles with their avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder (unfortunately many autistic people also have eating disorders) and an abusive father. What their father doesn’t understand is that it’s not that Cedar doesn’t want to eat, it’s that they have such severe sensory issues around taste there are only certain foods they can palate, none of which their father ever gives them. This story is another example of how badly parents can treat their autistic children (although in Cedar’s case their dad probably would have been abusive even if they were neurotypical). Unfortunately, it isn’t uncommon for autistic individuals to be abused, and their abuse is often blamed on their “challenging behaviors” rather than society’s ableism. Often the media will portray the abuser with sympathy as they were “burdened” with having an autistic child.

But those were the only two stories that felt like they made autism and autistic issues major plot points. The others chose to focus more on undead creatures, migraines, curses, abandoned buildings with dead whales, monkey gods, music, haunted houses and a head in a box. And honestly, I like that. While autism is part of someone’s identity, it’s only one part and Spectrum allows its authors to be their full selves rather than just focusing on their autism. I also really enjoyed seeing how differently autism manifested in each of the fictional characters, underlying how autism really is a broad spectrum. Some had severe sensory issues requiring soft clothing and ear protectors, others didn’t. Some struggled socially, others did not. Some characters had trouble with eye contact while others didn’t. Some were single, while others in committed relationships (there seems to be a myth that autistic people don’t date or have sex, which is patently untrue). There was no “one size fits all.” Autism is just one aspect of their personalities instead of all it, like is often the case when neurodiverse characters are written by neurotypicals. But their autism also wasn’t downplayed like it didn’t matter at all. They got to be multidimensional people.