Throwback Thursday: MIDNIGHT MASS, 2021

 

Throwback Thursday: The sequence in Midnight Mass where Henry Thomas plucks Wild Fell out of Kristen Lehman's hands in order to dance with her, to Neil Diamond's "Holly Holy," is one of my proudest moments as a grownup horror nerd, let alone as a novelist. It's nothing I could have imagined in 1982, at age twenty, when I watched him play Elliot in ET The Extra-Terrestrial. The entire scene is sunlight in a bottle, and even more so in light of the horror that follows. It looks gorgeous on the new TV, but I've always watched it when I needed a lift. I'm so grateful to Mike Flanagan for reaching out in 2020, and for inviting the book to play a small part in that glorious miniseries, one of my great filmed narrative loves.

PRIDE, coming spring 2024

 

The new book, PRIDE, will be published by Douglas & McIntyre two months from today, just in time for full spring. I'm delighted to be able to share the beautiful cover for the first time. Please follow along for updates as we get closer to publication day.

The brave, cruel death of Aaron Bushnell

 

I am haunted tonight by the story of Airman Aaron Bushnell, who set himself on fire yesterday in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., and died screaming "Free Palestine."

Quite apart from the fact that self-immolation is one of the oldest, most violent, and ultimately most self-sacrificing forms of political protest, the fact that his death should be a source of mockery and amusement in the gutters of social media should give everyone pause, no matter where they fall on what has been sterilely described as "the Israel-Gaza conflict."

In the absence of evidence that Mr. Bushnell had mental health issues (and no such evidence has been forthcoming) the only available conclusion is that he made himself the ultimate statement of the gravity of his beliefs. Where I land, that makes him a pure martyr, whatever anyone believes about his cause.

Furthermore, unlike other self-styled "martyrs," he took his own life without taking anyone else's. Perhaps unsurprisingly in a culture where so many so-called "believers in democracy" can't be bothered to even vote, the depth of commitment to an ideal that a sacrifice like his represents is most likely incomprehensible to most.

But the people circulating picture of his burning body on Twitter—in many cases, self-identified "pro-God" American Christians—make me wonder, yet again, if the real political divide in our society is between left and right, or if it's actually between the humane and the utterly inhumane—human beings so divorced from their own humanity, and the humanity of their fellow man, that they see humour, and find a source of sadistic disdain, in the tragic, horrifying heroism of a man burning himself alive to protest what he saw as an atrocity inflicted upon people he never even knew.

Airport thoughts, Sunday night

 

Tucked away at the airport with a Bloody Mary, doing some work for the publicist assigned to the new book, and thinking about this spectacular weekend with John Foster and Linda Jones, and the indomitable Coraline. Quite apart from having seen a part of New York I'd never seen before—John and Linda's Brooklyn—the trip was a joy in deeper ways.

After recent events, including my battle with cancer, this series of travels, most lately the visit with John and Linda, finished off a particular series of journeys. Last spring, I visited my deer Ron Oliver in Palm Springs for the first time since the pandemic; then, this past fall, it was Boston and Chicago to visit loved ones there, and attend to important, precious fires that may have burned a bit low during the past few years, and build them up bright again.

Personal adversity and illness focuses life in a way that almost nothing else does. I am cognizant of every single one of the precious people who were there for me during those dark times. I am also cognizant of the ones who, for whatever reason, were unable to extend, however close I may have once thought we were. I genuinely wish them well and send them on their own journeys will authentic love in my heart.

For me, for now, and for the foreseeable future, I will immerse myself in the relationships that sustained, and sustain me, and now that I am well and strong again, I will do my best to pay it forward.

Glorying in John and Linda's warmth, kindness, solidity, and hospitality this weekend—dinners at some of their favourite neighbourhood places, long walks, zipping across the city on the train system I've never really explored before, long, deep talks in their cozy, light-filled, book-lined living room— I was reminded yet again of my favourite Yeats quote: "See where man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends."

Outside the window of the lounge the sky is New York blue dappled with slender bands of yellow and orange. It's going to be a perfect night for flying.

 

Sleep deeply, dream sweetly, Brianna

 

In Manchester, UK today, two teenagers, a male and a female, were sentenced to 20+ year terms in prison for the sadistic murder of a 16-year old trans girl named Brianna Ghey last year. In a text, one of the two murderers said, "I want to see if it will scream like a man or a girl." In court, another of the murderers said "I wanted to see what size of dick it had." Brianna Ghey was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back

My friends on my FB friend list are good people—I rarely accept random friend requests, and I'm generally able to place any name on my list in some sort of context when I see it. That said, my friends have friends, and they have friends, and some of them are not very good people.

To my friends I beg this—the next time you encounter transphobia on this site, either casual or vindictive, please call it out. It's dangerous. It's not just "a personal opinion." Reporting hate seems minimally effective on Facebook in 2024, because the official policy is not to care very much. It's also a growing social policy in countries like Canada, the U.S. and Great Britain.

If Brianna had been a member of some other minority group, including gays and lesbians, and not a trans teenager, this ghastly story would have been on the cover of TIME, accompanied by a prizewinning think-piece about how it was time for a "reckoning," and that a "national dialogue" was needed.

But she wasn't. She was a member of an ultra-vulnerable minority group comprising 1%-2% of the population of Great Britain, and therefore, in the minds of many, utterly disposable, and, in their minds, probably brought it on herself by being herself.

While conservatives in Alberta, Canada spend this weekend gloating about how they've just implemented the most vicious. most un-Canadian anti-transgender legislation in our history, and while pick-me gays and lesbians throw trans people under the bus hoping that it will take some of the heat off themselves, and while self-righteous TERF campaigner in England loudly bray about how Pride flags in a national railway station "are a threat to women's rights," somewhere tonight Brianna Ghey's grieving mother and father will find cold comfort in the fact that their daughter's murderers will spend the next two decades in prison. Their arms will always be empty, and the ache and loss they feel will be with them until the day they die, like every parent of every child lost to monstrous bigotry turned violent that someone, somewhere, thought was their right to indulge.

Monsters don't all wield knives. Some of them wield words and lies, spoken aloud or gleefully share on social media.

We've all heard at least some of the words: "troon," "t*anny," "he-she," "groomer," "pedo," and worse, whether they come from dirtbags on Twitter, right-wing politicians, carefully camouflaged by bestselling children's authors, or brazenly trumpeted by billionaire comedians who validate the exact hate that led to this murder, and call it "comedy," and make it seem somehow righteous. The blood-drenched end result is all too tragically often the same.

She was a teenage girl, full of dreams about the possibilities of her own life. She could have been any of our daughters or granddaughters.

Rest in peace, Brianna. And love and comfort to all parents of murdered children who will be mourning them tonight.