Title: Somewhere in the night
First published: 1989
Description: All of the protagonists of the eight horror tales here are gay, allowing McMahan both a new twist on chiller standbys, such as vampirism and spirit possession, and an intriguing perspective on the complexities of gay life. Devilish energy and macabre wit glitter throughout. One vampire, for example, is an unwillingly undead ghoul with a heart of gold who pities the beautiful men he kills--yet he is reluctant to bestow the dubious gift of a vampire's immortality lest his liaisons with them grow tiresome over the millennia. A few stories teeter precariously between effective shock and the merely grisly: gory details menace the exposition of "Two-faced Johnny," in which a vain young man at a strange Halloween party is transformed permanently into the gruesome being of his costume. "Fantasyland," about a young boy who takes refuge in daydreams from his brutal rape until he rescues another boy from the same assailants, is the richest entry, a trenchant meditation on coming out as gay in a hostile society.
Subjects: American Erotic stories, American Fantasy fiction, American Horror tales, Erotic stories, American, Fantasy fiction, American, Fiction, Gays, Horror tales, American, Supernatural, Paranormal fiction, LGBTQ short stories, LGBTQ science fiction & fantasy, Lambda Literary Awards, Lambda Literary Award Winner, Fiction, science fiction, general