“Endure the scar. When you’re alone, on the bus, on the tracks, in the vacant lot, on the edge of the bathroom sink, that’s where they find you.” – Sofia Samatar and Del Samatar, “Self Portrait”
Hey, real quick up top: this is the first non-notebook writing I’ve done since the baby was born. Everyone’s doing great! She’s a delight! Mallory’s mostly recovered! Still, we have a three-week-old in the house, and our eight-year-old is suffering from an illness with a yet-to-determined diagnosis. What that translates into is: no one is sleeping. So please forgive me if this isn’t up to usual standards, or is a touch short. I’m sure as soon as it publishes, I’ll be like “damn, that woulda been good to discuss in the monster meditations column.” Oh well.
Not done with Monster Portraits just yet. Well, I suppose this is inspired by all of the books I’ve read in October so far. Plus Erasure and The Trees. Percival Everett’s not a horror writer, but he writes about The Horrors. I aspire to be a horror writer who writes about The Horrors.
You know, I’m reading these books by day, then listening to The Daily Zeitgeist or Behind The Bastards while I cook dinner. You know what they talk about on those shows? Respectively, the day’s news and history’s greatest monsters. A whiplash happens. In literature, there’s this interrogation of “am I a monster? Is what I’m doing monstrous? Is my expression of identity monstrous?” While literature is certainly not bereft of the monstrous, fiction usually can’t hold a candle to real life. Especially in the case of the Satamars, who seem delightful.
There are pressures put on us by Empire. Fascism demands we look a certain way, act a certain way, adhere to codes. People of the underclass feel these pressures and turn blame inwards. Meanwhile, in the news, real bloodthirsty monsters—warmongers, bigots, cops, JK Rowling—seem to feel no shame. They have no inward interrogation, or, if they do, it doesn’t stop them from waking up every day and deciding to commit monstrous acts.
The monsters come dressed in respectability, too. The Night Of The Hunter shows a monster dressed in priests’ robes, Midnight Mass shows us church-bound monsters who actually believe they are working God’s will. In real life, you’re best running away as fast as you can. Politicians wear suits, but even one of their “dressing down” sweaters probably costs as much as my whole wardrobe. They get uncannily bright veneers and balloon animal Mar-A-Lago face, I wear sunscreen and hope I have health insurance if I ever get melanoma. These men with thumb-shaped HGH heads and women injecting botulism directly into their faces walk around in positions of power, crying about “blue-haired they/thems” wanting to assault children in bathrooms after a hard day of ruining girls’ sports. Never mind how a WNBA team can’t play the Indiana Fever without worrying about their Black players getting the batteries-thrown-at-Jackie-Robinson treatment.
The wrong people feel like monsters. If I’m being honest, the wrong people are getting exiled to the margins of society. Not to brag, but I live in a neighborhood full of immigrants and trans people, yet somehow I’m struggling to think of a West Ridge resident I don’t like. Meanwhile, there are people in this world whose thoughts are so bloodthirsty and abhorrent that they would break your brain if you know what they were up to. We call those people “the Department of War.” There’s no subtlety left in politics. There’s no winking and nodding at fascism from the conservatives. There’s ICE nabbing people off the street. There’s DHS knocking on people’s doors or universities witholding diplomas or newspapers firing columnists because someone said something mean on social media, then there’s Pete Hegseth saying “we’re gonna livestream executions and reveling in the death of your enemies is good, actually.” The wrong people are made to feel like monsters.
Sorry you got an email,
Chris