ALN Monthly Book Club: Bury Your Gays (Old Town)

For our October Monthly Book Club, we will be reading Chuck Tingle's "Bury Your Gays!"

We will be hosting this event IN PERSON, outdoors, at Presidio Park in Old Town! We recommend (but do not require) that attendees wear masks and maintain social distance.

We typically meet at the picnic tables in the shade at the end of the loop made by Cosoy Way. Please see the embedded map below for more details.

Content warning: Gore, Homophobia, Violence, Child Abuse, Stalking. Details not given here to avoid spoilers. Contact an organizer if you have concerns about the book's content.

Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell. But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, "for the algorithm," in the upcoming season finale. Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he's just put a target on his back. And what's worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles.

We hope to see you there!

Questions:

1. Intro: What is your name, and what horror creature, from any genre or media, would you least like to encounter when walking down a dark alley?
2. As this novel is set in modern times, the author incorporates several ‘horrors’ of modern life: going viral for the wrong reasons; uncontrolled corporate data gathering; facing bigotry for being outed. Does the presence of very real horrors enhance or distract from the fictional ones in the story?
3. Misha is a genre-savvy, if unreliable narrator. How well does this help him survive and overcome the antagonistic AI? How do you feel about genre-savvy characters more generally?
4. Tara’s character, at first glance, comes off as a walking stereotype: queer, paranoid, tech genius/hacker. As members of a nerdy sub-community ourselves, does this still feel far-fetched?
5. This novel includes a sci-fi twist in the middle of a traditional mystical horror tale. Is this genre shift successful in bringing the reader along?
6. Out of control AI is a common theme in modern/futuristic horror (Terminator, Matrix, Filterworld). How did you feel about this portrayal?Was it a better horror antagonist than other rogue AIs you’re familiar with?
7. How much AI in entertainment media is too much? Scriptwriting? Spellchecking? Special Effects? Actor replacement?
8. Hollywood has long been the subject of rumors and conspiracies. Does a rogue profit-driven AI algorithm being the one running the show even stand out when placed against claims of aliens, certain religious groups, scapegoated minorities, or wealthy criminal interests?
9. Queer horror is a particular sub-genre which casual or occasional horror readers or viewers might miss entirely. All high-level genres will have niche sub-genres to feed a passionate audience (Hallmark holiday romance movies; fantasy tales about animals trained in martial arts, etc). What other highly specific sub-genres do you think would play well to casual fans of a high-level genre?
10. LGBT representation in popular often falls into very specific tropes, such as:

• lack of portrayals of LGBT characters that do normal things
• only around for comic relief
• appearance and/or actions reduced to a stereotype
• bury your gays

The author calls out and refutes these tropes specifically. Are there other overused tropes that you would like to see taken out of common use?

Upcoming Events:
November: Dreadful, by Caitlin Rozakis
December: Legends and Lattes, by Travis Baldree
January: Nettle and Bone, by T. Kingfisher
February: You'd Look Better as a Ghost, by Joanna Wallace
March: Blood over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang
April: The Hexologists, by Josiah Bancroft
May: The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, by Axie Oh
June: The Demon-Haunted World, by Carl Sagan
July: The Chaotic Orbits Trilogy, by Beth Revis
August: The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez
EPIC: The Priory of the Orange Tree, by Samantha Shannon
September: 2026-2027 ALN Book Selection!