100 pages
Published 2024
Read from June 4 to June 5
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
By inverting just one expectation of the usual Bram Stoker mythos — the not-quite-vampires here crave sunlight and hate the dark — McLeod delivers an incisive queer allegory of hiding in the shadows while predators prowl in daylight. She develops the allegory brilliantly for our age of pandemic and authoritarian reaction.
Years ago, “Sunbathers” rejected the scientific warnings that kept everyone else huddled inside; not content with their own transformation, they physically pulled people from their homes to die or transform with them. Tanning beds replace coffins. Puritanism, heteronormativity, and conformity delineate these sunny carnivores, rather than Victorian fears of queerness and death.
Without spoiling too much (no more than the summary on the back cover does, anyhow) our narrator Soph extends the allegory into closeting oneself to purchase safety and acceptance, only to find that a life of empty beige perfection isn’t worth the trade. The Sunbathers’ superstraight utopia is simultaneously hilarious and horrifying.
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