Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
(Titan Books, 2023)
Reviewed by Kate Onyett
Chuck Tingle is an internet philosopher and a spirit on the electronic winds, best known, perhaps, for his e-novellas of seminal erotic fiction. You know the ones: “Pounded In The Butt By [human, animal, objects, metaphysical concepts]”. He espouses above all love in all its forms and self-determination.
Camp Damascus is his first ‘serious’ novel, about a demonically successful gay conversion camp run by a conservative Christian sect. It is a journey of revelation for Rose, a devout 20-year-old honestly devoted to the teachings of the sect. A clever, sheltered, fact-curious and mildly autistic woman, Rose’s life is complicated with feelings of attraction for girls. We begin at a wholesome social at a local waterfall with her friends and peers under a warm summer sun, but things quickly get weird. She spots a literal demoness on the cliff opposite and later at home coughs up a load of mayflies.
Her parents tell her to forget it, her religious therapist tells her it’s nothing, but when Rose daringly attends a (actually pretty tame) party, the demoness violently and fatally interrupts proceedings. This makes Rose only more determined to discover the truth.
There’s a LOT going on here, and more than I have room to go into, including religious conservatism and hypocrisy, homophobia, neurodivergence, post-cult living and some good old-fashioned high-action whup-arse (there are flamethrowers!). The book is definitely< surfing on the current zeitgeist of the author’s home country. American states are wrestling with issues of sexual identity and personal autonomy, often through a right-leaning religious lens, right up to the ballot box itself.
The morality of personal autonomy being persecuted by an authoritarian force is, for me, the main narrative thread. The sheer monstrosity of religious tormenting of non-heterosexuals is literally manifested in the form of demons summoned as a form of aversion therapy. The bodily and mental autonomy of those the sect sees as ‘deviant’ is being shanghaied through supernatural threat. However, the demons are not only a tool of oppression, but are also themselves being victimised.
They are basically slaves; dragged into this reality and chained in place, forced to do the will of their captors. In case you weren’t sure, Tingle wraps this up in a more contemporary allusion. Leaning into the oppressive abuses of low-wage work, the demons are actually dressed in Walmart-esque uniforms, right down to the name badges!
The insidious nature of authoritarian control does not stop even after Rose is physically free of the sect and her own demon. There is still the conscious deprogramming from the mental and emotional habits built from ideological dogma. The story peels away and showcases various forms of restraint against which the declared ‘non-normal’ of a group must resist and overcome. It’s a salutary warning against falling too far down a particular rabbit hole, and there are a lot of crazy rabbit-holes out there. It offers hope, however, that escape is possible.
Self-realisation and political, religious and social sub-text aside, there is plenty of action, and a big-budget denouement to keep things bouncing along. It’s a satisfying ending to a nifty-paced, moral escapade that got me thinking far more than I thought a supernatural romp would do.
Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.