Unspeakable Horror!

I want to begin by offering a strong recommendation to purchase and read Dust of Wonderland by Lee Thomas.  Not only is the novel an excellent and scary horror story, but it is also an important work in the growing genre of Queer Horror!

Here is my response to the book.  Beware: spoilers ahead! 

Lee Thomas' Dust of Wonderland presents a complex portrait of a family divided by the identity crisis and turmoil of the protagonist, Ken Nicholson.  Like Straub's Ghost Story, the past is back to haunt the present.  For Ken Nicholson, this past involves his bizarre relationship with a sinister figure named Travis Brugier (definitely a shadow figure in the Jungian sense of the term). 

My analysis of the horror genre rests on the assumption that the "horror" reflects an anxiety.  In the Dust of Wonderland (a true Queer Horror novel in the sense that it is written for a gay audience -- at least Alyson markets their books to a gay audience), the horror of the story, the mayhem unleashed by the powers of Travis Brugier, reflect powerful cultural anxieties about the collision of "queer lifestyle" and a traditional "family lifestyle" (both are in quotation marks because there is no true fixed definition of these lifestyles, although many people will try to convince you otherwise).  

As a young man, Ken Nicholson is kept by Travis Brugier as a kind of bride-prisoner (interestingly, Brugier is not interested in Nicholson for sex, but for some mysterious purpose).  Brugier operates an opulent and hedonistic gay establishment in New Orleans called Wonderland.  Travis Brugier is a fascinating creation in the genre of Queer Horror.  For one reason, he has a long series of lives -- this reincarnation provides a unique kind of "undead" immortality for this character.  Even though Brugier does not have sex with Ken, Brugier is associated with the hedonism and the transgression of Wonderland, which he operates as a proprietor.  He is a figure of power -- he wields both financial power and a Dracula-like power over the boys of Wonderland.   Basically, Brugier is a manifestation of the hedonistic gay lifestyle of Ken's youth, a life Ken chooses to abandon, later starting a heterosexual family with two children.  However, the figure of Brugier is not willing to let him go.  In a sense, Brugier functions as a manifestation of the queer lifestyle that Ken leaves behind (another aspect of Ken's self -- this is why he is like a Jungian shadow figure).  However, Brugier is also filled with a desire for vengeance on Ken -- a very Freudian reading might be that Brugier (representing Ken's queer self) is vengeful because he has been repressed.  This Freudian reading is complicated by the fact that Ken has already come out of the closet to his family when the main plot line of the story begins.  Why does Brugier desire this vengeance?  I feel like this is a mysterious part of the novel that is not fully explained, although I'm not suggesting that this is a flaw, but rather a textual mystery.

There are also many interesting supporting characters in this novel.  I was especially intrigued by the psychology of Ken's ex-wife.  I also enjoyed the quasi-romance aspect of the novel with Ken's estranged lover.  There are many aspects to this novel, all of which revolve around themes of sexuality, identity, and accountability.  It is a nicely layered psychological drama that also happens to contain a vengeful, immortal psychopath with the ability to control people's minds. 

I won't go into Brugier's dark powers too much -- I just want to say that the horror genre has a long tradition of blurring the boundaries of perception and sanity, and this novel does a brilliant job playing with those themes.

I hope you find this entry tantalizing enough to pick up a copy of this excellent horror novel. 

Buy the book from my bookstore!