Triptych of Terror: Three Chilling Tales By the Masters of Gay Horror

by John Michael Curlovich, David Thomas Lord, Michael Rowe, et al.

Book Overview

Just in time for Halloween, here are three spooky tales. A gay teen in a conservative small town discovers that Halloween means so much more than costumes and candy. In an industrial town, an... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: 0739472720
• ISBN13: 9780739472729
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Alyson Books
• Length: 281 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Scary Stuff

Curlovich, John Michael, Rowe, Michael, and David Thomas Lord. "Triptych of Terror: Chilling Tales by the Masters of Gay Horror", Alyson 2006. Scary Stuff While shopping today at a local store in Little Rock, I was amazed to see both Halloween and Christmas decorations all over the store I was in. It's only August and we are already getting ready for the ghouls and the goblins as well as St. Nick. I figured if the stores could get ready for Halloween, so could I so I came home and read "Triptych" and prepared for the oncoming season. "Triptych" is the combined work of three masters of horror. We have John Michael Curlovich with "A Holy Time for the Dead" about a powerful televangelist whose goal it is to get Halloween back from the spirits and reclaim it as a tool for Christianity. First he must manage to get rid of a closeted young minister and banish him to a church which is haunted. The young minister, however, resists and becomes a powerful adversary. More dark fantasy than horror, it is a story that will completely engross you. Michael Rowe gives us "In October" and this is the best in the book. It follows a young man in a small northern town which is obsessed with maintaining the status quo. The most powerful person in the town and the biggest name is a preacher who controls the most powerful church in the area. Mikey Childress is harassed and bullied by the townsfolk and his one friend, a Goth girl, tries to protect him. He, one evening, turns to the occult as his method of revenge and what happens afterwards is sheer horror. David Thomas Lord gives "The Secret of the Fey" which is a cautionary tale that shows how we should be really careful about what we wish for. 63 year old Tom Hogan is in pain over the loss of his longtime partner, Daniel. His grief paralyzes him and e rues growing older in an age when so much emphasis is placed on youth. His life is meaningless until he travels to a gay bar and is smitten by an Adonis and mistakes him as a leprechaun of sorts and wishes him to be his over. Here is a wonderful allegory on the Fountain of Youth with wonderful mysticism and erotic passion. When Tom realizes that he is living in a dream world, he also realizes that his dream is a nightmare and this is just the onset. These three horror stories are bound t capture the reader. What a fun read this is and one that should not be missed. It is a creative look at the genre of horror writing and very refreshing.

Powerful, suspense building. I want more anthologies like this.

I am not going to rehash the exact details and plots, since the other reviewers have already done this very ably. I felt that the first piece, A HOLY TIME FOR ALL THE DEAD, was actually dark fantasy rather than horror. I enjoyed it. The second story, IN OCTOBER, had me going, and I enjoyed it alot. It made me think of some horror movies that I have seen. But the third piece, THE SECRETS OF THE FEY, was the most powerful, clearly horrific. There was this confusion, and a building sense of dread, leading to the climax. The ending was like a fist in the face for me, and I actually cried at the end of this story, and I rarely do that. Whoever put together this anthology, I would like to see more, maybe a regular series, a new volume every couple of years.

Three tales, One shining star.

Michael Rowe's stellar "In October" is the clear star of the three stories of Triptych of Terror. The story follows a young man who lives in a small northern town that's obsessed with the status quo. The town's biggest name is a popular preacher who is over the largest and most influential church in the community. It is as chilling as it is erotic, passionate as it is calculated. When a mystery force starts killing off Mikey's greatest enemies, the story takes a dark turn that culminates in an ending that hits with disturbing satisfaction. Thanks to Michael Rowe for taking me into this tale, I didn't want to come out of it!

Another Outstanding Anthology!

It is with trembling pleasure that I give you (FINALLY) my review of Triptych of Terror, a horror anthology featuring the works of John Michael Curlovich, Michael Rowe, and David Thomas. Michael Rowe's "In October" is by far the most enthralling of all three tales. It is delightfully disturbing and dark, with realistic main characters and a well-paced plot line in which readers find themselves drawn into Mikey Childress' world from the very first page. Michael Rowe is the Rembrandt of his genre, painting a mosaic of teenage angst amidst the backdrop of a small town insular high school populace subjugated by pitiless tormentors. His approach is both superbly erotic and chilling, and the ending unquestionably tugs at the heartstrings. I graciously recommend this anthology. Rowe fans will not be disappointed.

A Trio of Terrors...With a Twist

John Michael Curlovich's novella "A Holy Time for All the Dead" leads off the intriguing new queer horror anthology, "Triptych of Terror". The reverend Steven Merchant is the newly appointed rector at the Old Stone Loaves and Fishes Full Gospel Fellowship Church in a run-down industrial town in the backwoods of Pennsylvania. Merchant is fresh out of Baptist seminary, assigned in part to the unglamorous locale because of a pesky homosexual indiscretion at the school. He is charged by the villainous Pastor Jack Cantworthy (an over-the-top antagonist who is equal parts gluttonous and nefarious) with creating a religious uproar over the secularization of Halloween in order to jumpstart the elder pastor's master plan to restore the holiday to its religious roots in honoring the dead. He arrives in run-down Glowney Junction to encounter an oddly-out-of-place cast of oddball characters - from the pedophile Catholic priest across the street, to the blind town business mogul and seminary benefactor affectionately known as the Zipper King, to a pair of decidedly queer-leaning, spiky-haired, eyebrow-pierced teenage boys who talk and act more like street hustlers in West Hollywood than small-town teens in an economically depressed industrial town. Curlovich crafts a trippy little story about the freedom of sexual expression versus the repression of religious fundamentalism. He incorporates many classic elements of a haunting into the storyline, creating an effective metaphor for the repression of the closet. There are moments of genuinely scary imagery like the little dancing, flesh-ripping gargoyles whose use is quite effective. The author (who has also written some excellent haunted dwelling novels under the name Michael Paine) creates a fascinating protagonist in the Reverend Merchant, believably presenting him as a fully flawed mortal at a crossroads between his sexual orientation and the religion he loves. In the end, "A Holy Time for All the Dead" would have benefited from a novel-length treatment with several of the clichés trimmed down. Curlovich tries admirably to pack too much into too few pages, injecting some incongruous elements that detract somewhat from the storytelling. A Holy Time for the Dead is a haunting, dreamlike overstuffed piece of horror with some decidedly eerie imagery and a memorable spin on a classic story. In Michael Rowe's superb novella "In October", readers are introduced to Mikey Childress, an outcast teenager living in a small-town Canadian suburb. Mikey's dreams of being loved are juxtaposed against his daily battles with an indifferent father who's dismissive and ashamed of his son's lack of machismo, a faith-obsessed mother who spends more time at church praying than she does loving her only child, and a particularly hateful group of high school bullies who subject him to a torrent of everyday horrors meant to humiliate and break his spirit. Mikey's one friend is Goth gal pal Wroxy, a self-professed white witch who of