Keith Rosson’s Queer-ish Coffin Moon Is Scary Good

Yer boy Hank here is just gonna come right out and say it. Keith Rosson's recent novel Coffin Moon isn't just one of the best horror books I've ever read; it's one of the best books of any genre I've ever read. And I've read a lot of books, and a lot of horror. "But Hank, it's after Halloween. Why should I care about horror books now?" Shush yer mouth! You like books? You like queer characters? You like vampires? You like queer vampires? You like horrific violence, the kind that even made this jaded reader squirm? Then read this!

Also, just look how cute the author, Rosson, is in that pic above!

Coffin Moon, published this past September, is the brutal story of Duane Minor, a Vietnam vet in 1974. He's just barely hanging on to his new sobriety as he valiantly takes on the role of step-parent to his 13-year-old niece Julia, whose mother is imprisoned for the murder of her husband, Julia's step-father. He's a loving husband, tending to and living above the bar his mother-in-law owns. When he tries to do the right thing by strong-arming and evicting a group of bikers from selling heroin out of the back of the bar, he sets in motion a string of events that will lay a savage path and haunt him for the rest of his life. Unaware that his MIL sanctions the drug dealing, he and Julia lose everything when his wife and in-laws are brutally murdered in a horrific act of revenge by one of the bikers.

And that's when he learns that the leader of the bikers is a vampire. And soon after, we learn that John Varley, the vampire in question, plays for our team!

"Mind-blowingly good. A horror novel that will keep you awake long after you turn the last page" Stephen King

What is it about us gays and vampires? For those of us who love horror films and novels, what is it about the character of the vampire that so enamors us? Personally, I think it has to do with the fantasy of what we see as having unlimited power and control over those around us. Many of us grew up bullied and feeling powerless; to turn that burdensome table around and have the power (and unlimited time!) to exact revenge, to never feel pain or consequence, seems like a dream. And to be forever young and beautiful to boot? Well, if that doesn't sound queer, I don't know what does?

But if it's the European, effete aesthetic so often around thanks to those Anne Rice novels that you seek, you won't find any of that in this viscerally violent and realistic novel by Rosson. I say "realistic" because Rosson spends some time setting us up with Minor and his family, their troubles and traumas, all states of being we can relate to. It's a blue-collar world in a very derelict time, post-Vietnam. The seventies were simply gross, and it's reflected in the mood and tone of this intensely unromanticised novel. Rosson creates this grim time with nuanced details and language that is less interested in being elevated and more interested in cutting to the surprisingly emotional core. When the fangs come out and the blood and body parts start flying (and there is so much blood and so many body parts!), we are already deep into Duane's world and feel for him and Julia, and we care about what happens to them.

"Keith Rosson is slowly, surely, unstoppably carving his claim on modern horror. Do NOT miss this one." Patton Oswalt

Rosson isn't interested in giving us pretty, elegant vampires living the high life, resplendent in finery and luxury. His creatures are destitute children barely hanging on in a series of abandoned buildings, a 9-year-old woman-child, and a former street tough from the turn-of-the-20th-century upper Midwest. His principal antagonist, Varley, is a tall, handsome, blonde monster. He had violence at his core before he was turned, and that monstrousness has only intensified in his vampiric state. And he just happens to be into dudes. Having never loved, nor turned another human for partnership, he eventually takes on a young German art student, Johan, a true and natural psychotic who shares his craven desire for violence. In one early scene, desperate to prove his devotion to his new man, Johan stomps an old man's head to pulp in a rest-stop bathroom, a scene that flips tearoom cruising on its brutal head.

As Varley and his young plaything travel the country after the murders of Duane's family, the body count is numerous, purposeful, and exquisitely described with squirm-inducing detail. One scene involving a hacksaw even had me thinking "Oh, dear Lord!" Duane and Julia hunt for Varley, seeking revenge, and it all comes to a frenzied conclusion that is as poignant and genuine as it is brutally dripping in gore.

"Man, Keith Rosson’s Coffin Moon is so fucking good. I wish I had written it. This thing rips." Joe Hill

What I really loved about this was the characterization of queerness in Varley. He's simply a product of his time, his abusive upbringing, his power and willingness to become a crime boss's muscle, and to later become his own "man." He's into men, but he would never call himself "gay." Maybe queer, to use the term before it became self-appropriated. It was the term he would have grown up with. But there is no political pretense to him. There is no community. There is no Stonewall in his worldview. He's a complete loner. He simply is. And part of what he is, desires men.

No, there are no sex scenes, though it's hinted that sex has occurred. Rosson, being a straight man, seems to have written this queer character more with an eye for what he understands. Varley is a man first, a brutal, immoral, terrible man. And he's gay, second. Which means his sexuality doesn't lead him; his sexuality is not a causal factor in his behavior. And I found that refreshing. Varley is a vampire who, as a human, was, and still is, as a vampire, gay.  But he's not a Gay Vampire. Rosson never tries to write from a gay man's point of view. He never tries to write from a gay perspective. He simply writes from a man's perspective, and it makes the character of Varley so much more well-rounded and unstereotypical.

"Epic, horrific, heartbreaking, and written with a punk poet’s soul, Coffin Moon reads like the pre-Near Dark, 1970s vampire novel you always wanted. This book will leave its mark." Paul Tremblay

As much as this is a tale of revenge and a hope for redemption, it also touches on themes of family trauma, of fatherhood, of deep and unresolvable loss and grief. This is elevated horror that is as down-and-dirty as it gets. And it fucking rocks!

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