Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

Episode 111

Release Date: October 11, 2023

In this spooky month episode, your hosts discuss Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, notorious parody erotica author. This book, however, has a lot more bugs and a lot less sex. They talk about how important it is to pace info in horror stories, the inherent horror of gay conversion camps, and whether this book even counts as a horror novel at all. But on one thing they do agree - it sure is spooky.

This episode includes discussion of homophobia and religious trauma. Find us on discord: https://discord.gg/dpNHTWVu6b or support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fictionfanspod

Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Darkest Child by Kevin MacLeod

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

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Episode Transcript*

*this transcript is AI generated, please excuse the mess.

Lilly:0:03

and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily.

Sara:0:09

I am Sarah.

Lilly:0:10

And tonight we'll be discussing Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle. But first, Sarah, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:0:18

Something great that happened recently. I've been playing a lot of divinity, original sin 2. It's a game. I'm playing it on, on the PlayStation. It's not console exclusive. And I've owned the game for years. Never got very far. And finally I finished it. I finished it last night. I beat the game. I'm so

Lilly:0:39

Can I use you finally finishing Doss two as my good thing also,

Sara:0:44

Yes. Yes. I think it is that good.

Lilly:0:46

It is such a good game For context for listeners, it's by the same developer as Balder's Gate three. It's a game that Daniel and I actually backed on Kickstarter before. It was obviously made we've been playing Doss two since it was in early access. We've played that game, I wanna say, seven or eight times. Some of them not all the way through because we were doing it on hardcore mode, and then we died before the end of the game and couldn't finish the run.

Sara:1:13

Have you ever finished it on honor mode or whatever it's called?

Lilly:1:17

Yeah.

Sara:1:18

I'm impressed. I finished it not on story mode, which is fights are super easy because the story is the thing, but on explorer mode, which is one level up.

Lilly:1:30

It sure wasn't my first run through

Sara:1:32

I might start a classic mode, which is like your baseline. but we'll see how often I die. I might go back to regular I mean to the explorer.

Lilly:1:42

I mean, It's a game that is backed up by really good writing, like it's worth playing on explorer mode.

Sara:1:48

Oh yeah. I mean, I had a great time on explore mode because the storyline doesn't change. Like That's the same

Lilly:1:55

Anyway that'll be half of my good thing because my good thing is not small but quiet. had a moment of perfect serenity earlier this week. It's been raining a shit ton here, but like gorgeous warm rain. It's been like 65 and pouring. So the other day we had all of our windows open, because someone might have burned something on the stove, that's not the point. So we could hear all of the rain pouring down. And then we also have some new bird feeders up. So I was just listening to all of this bird song in the pouring rain, and it was just like delightful. It was nice.

Sara:2:31

That sounds so peaceful.

Lilly:2:33

It was. And I just was like, you know, sometimes you just wanna capture a moment in your heart. And that was one of those. Alright, what are we drinking tonight?

Sara:2:42

Camp Damascus strikes me as a beer book. I don't know why. It just seems like a beer book, but I don't drink beer, so I'm drinking cider

Lilly:2:53

I was also trying to come up with a good themed beverage. But this book is depressing. Not like overall, but when I try to think about the individual things that happen in it, I'm just like, Ugh, gross I don't want to mimic anything about that.

Sara:3:12

think I view it as a beer book because it is about people who. Even though they're in their twenties or at least our main character is 20, I think. But she is a high school senior, and so it just like that kind of

Lilly:3:29

Oh, that kind of beer. Not like a craft beer, like a Natty Ice. Gotcha.

Sara:3:36

Yeah. Like at that kind of end of high school, starting college culture, it just, it seemed like a beer book.

Lilly:3:42

Okay. I am now on that. There is a party scene at one point, I guess we never find out what the kid was drinking, but someone smuggled in alcohol. Ooh.

Sara:3:52

How scandalous, but we are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves, we're not talking about the book just yet. We have a couple more questions to get through.

Lilly:4:01

And also I'm drinking red wine out of a box as it should be

Sara:4:05

As God intended.

Lilly:4:08

Oh, am gonna have to try to not get real fighty in this episode.

Sara:4:13

Yep. Yep.

Lilly:4:16

All right, Sarah. than our wonderful podcast book, have you read anything good lately?

Sara:4:20

I finished Orconomics by J. Zachary Pike which I believe I've mentioned on the podcast before, and it took me a minute to actually like get into it. But once I did, I was fully invested. I really love, hated how it ended. I really want to talk about it on the podcast with you. I think we should read it

Lilly:4:42

Yeah, it's been on my list except not my real list because that's just the podcast list.

Sara:4:49

It's on the list that you pretend to yourself that you'll get around to one day.

Lilly:4:54

I don't pretend if it's not on the podcast list, it's not getting read. also. Yeah, I haven't read anything I was kind of considering a reading Chuck Tingle, except you can't rent any of his novels from the library for some reason. And I was too cheap to buy them, so I didn't,

Sara:5:11

When we had originally talked about reading Chuck Tingle for the podcast, this was not what we were intending to read. We were intending to read one of his erotica novels. If they can be called erotica, I guess they're erotica. I've never actually read them.

Lilly:5:25

They're. Pretty openly parody, right? Pounded in the ass by Coronavirus.,like

Sara:5:32

They're definitely parody, but that doesn't necessarily make them not erotica.

Lilly:5:37

No, it can be both. Yeah. yeah. Anyway, I think it is pretty funny that this is our first Chuck Tingle novel

Sara:5:45

My question about it is it still considered a tingler if it's not, as we've said, his parody erotica novel.

Lilly:5:53

That's a good question. I think it's kind of a, squares versus rectangles thing, right? All tingler are Chuck Tingle novels, but not all Chuck Tingle novels are tingler.

Sara:6:07

It's quite possible. Tingler does seem like a kind of weird way to reference this book in

Lilly:6:15

Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot of bugs. I think there might be too many bugs in this book for it to be considered a tingler.

Sara:6:25

There are a lot of bugs. I think I got to I read the an ebook copy and I got to about 9% in and said, I messaged you and said, oh boy. The main character is vomiting bugs all over the place.

Lilly:6:39

All over her spaghetti

Sara:6:40

Yeah. All over her spaghetti. It sure is a horror novel.

Lilly:6:44

Is interesting because it comes out strong with that, like very visceral imagery, but then well, We have a whole bullet point for the supernatural aspects of this book in the spoiler section. Also, yeah. I sure didn't look up a single thing about this book before reading it. I just went, Chuck Tingle wrote a horror book I'm in.

Sara:7:06

I knew the basics of it, like I knew the premise.

Lilly:7:09

Yeah. Probably shouldn't surprise me that a. Bisexual man raised in Utah wrote a horror novel about a gay conversion camp There is some, there's some symmetry there

Sara:7:21

Yeah.

Lilly:7:22

a lot of this book, I feel like has moments that feel extremely sincere for someone, struggling with their upbringing. in a way that I don't really resonate with when we get to who this book is for, the answer's not me. I still enjoyed it overall, but there were definitely points where I was like this probably would've felt like a punch in the gut to someone else.

Sara:7:44

Yeah, book was never gonna be for me because it's a horror novel and I'm not a

Lilly:7:49

you are a champ. Thanks for doing spooky month with me again.

Sara:7:55

I'm happy to do spooky month once a year. If you tried to make spooky month, like 11 months out of the year, then we'd have problems. But one month I can handle. So this book was never going to be for me, but I think I agree with you that a lot of this book would have resonated more if I had any kind of experience with that kind of struggle with faith or struggle with my sexuality, that the main character experiences.

Lilly:8:26

It made me feel detached in a way that made me feel guilty, because I was almost like a Nat Geo commentator. Like, Oh yes, this is what people and love have gone through. Fascinating to hear the inside thought process and that's not nice

Sara:8:44

That's, I can't say that's how I felt, but I did feel a little bit removed from going on.

Lilly:8:51

Yeah. And that being removed feels bad when it's such an intimate experience. And yes, this is a horror novel. It's fiction, but a lot of the aspects of it rang very true.

Sara:9:05

Yeah, maybe not the vomiting flies into your spaghetti, but there's a lot of this book that I think does come from real life experiences,

Lilly:9:14

So I did have to look up Damascus and I didn't want to admit that because I thought for sure that was some Greek mythology thing that I should understand the reference to, but it's not, it's a Bible thing, so that's fine.

Sara:9:29

I mean, It's not a surprise. It's a Bible thing given the book

Lilly:9:33

yeah,

Sara:9:34

as a whole,

Lilly:9:35

I just heard the word Damascus and like vaguely knew the location of the city and was like Hmm, I also did not bother to look up any of the Bible verses that are referenced in the text.

Sara:9:47

I didn't either. I never look up or I very rarely look up things that are referenced in books I figure that the book is going to give me enough context to understand what they're referencing at nine times out of 10, they do, and this

Lilly:10:01

Well, yeah I never felt left behind. I do think that we're maybe not doing the conversation justice. Like how do those passages, do they change the way I read what's happening in the scene? Like Is that tingle giving us a little, like nudge about what's going on? If we saw, the numbers and we're like, oh yeah, that one that's always used to make people feel bad about this thing. Maybe it would, yeah, it could like add, I'm sure it adds context,

Sara:10:31

I'm sure that it adds something because I don't think that Tingle would've included it if it

Lilly:10:36

Well, Definitely adds world building, right? This is a first person novel from the perspective of someone who thinks in terms of Bible verses, like that's just how she's raised and that really creates this culture. It tells you exactly what kind of culture she's in.

Sara:10:52

Yeah. Yes. You know exactly the kind of town that Rose is from and what her family is like,

Lilly:10:59

Ooh.

Sara:10:59

What her surroundings are like.

Lilly:11:02

I would say the horror in this novel really has two very different sides. the supernatural, right? Like you get the very visceral horror of her visions, you know, all of the bugs and all of the scary people hiding in corners. But then I think more of the text, well saying I think is dumb'cause it's obvious, but then the majority of the text is really spending time with the quiet horror of Rose's, family life. And that I would say is the driving force of the novel.

Sara:11:34

Yeah, I wish that the book had picked one and stuck with it because I felt that. treating both of them with as much page time as they each got took away from the horror of the other.

Lilly:11:54

I didn't feel that way. I felt like the book maybe could have used More length or girth?

Sara:12:01

maybe not took away from the horror, but like the impact

Lilly:12:04

I don't know if I had that experience reading this. It did feel like very separate things but even then, it was that eerie horror of her. Trying to make sense of these things that she's seeing in this very controlling home environment that created an entire other sense of stress and distress.

Sara:12:28

I mean maybe if we had more page time, just in general,'cause this book is pretty short. Maybe if there had been a little more page time, that for me would've gone away.

Lilly:12:38

I have, what I think was happening here, but it's definitely a spoiler to talk about. So maybe we just shell this for a moment.

Sara:12:48

Okay.

Lilly:12:49

Another thing that I noticed about this novel, the prose in particular, is that it gets very heavy handed and preachy in parts in a way that doesn't really work for me personally. not that I disagreed with any of the very preachy moments I think I've probably made this exact same complaint for a lot of other books. Oh my God, I agree with you. Stop.

Sara:13:13

that does sound like a familiar complaint,

Lilly:13:16

Except in this book in particular, and maybe I now need to go back and reevaluate Preachy moments in the prose where tingle is taking time out of the story to say, but hey, no, they were wrong. It actually is okay to be gay, just like straight out in black and white print in the middle of a scene where stuff is happening. I think because this is a story so intertwined with Both the experience of, people, not coming out exactly but dealing with tension between their sexuality and a religious upbringing. There's a lot of really homophobic language in this book from characters who are bad guys, but it's still happening and I feel like perhaps Tingle really wanted to make the book palatable for someone who does identify with the text more than we do. And so by having these little, not even asides, just like. Big stop signs in the middle of a chapter occasionally that says, Hey, this is wrong. Rose, the main character is arguing with them because this is a bad thing. Can make the experience of reading the book feel less like being transported back into that culture.

Sara:14:40

yeah, it's quite possible. And I do think that it makes sense four. Rose as a character to be reaffirming these things to herself. And because, as you say, it is a first person perspective, We get a lot of that as these full stops in the chapters. but I, it's not out of

Lilly:15:02

That's true. Yeah. I don't know. I could have lived with some ambiguity, but I can totally see why. This book did not want anyone reading it to think for a single second that its message was. Anything else?

Sara:15:18

this book was not trying to be subtle. It was not a subtle book. It was not subtle horror.

Lilly:15:24

I know asking you to say nice things about a book that you did not enjoy is, a lot.

Sara:15:29

I don't mean that as an insult. it's okay for a book to not be subtle especially when it's a subject like being queer. I'm fine with that. I didn't dislike this book.

Lilly:15:41

It wasn't for

Sara:15:41

I just, it was not for me. And that's entirely because I'm not a horror person. So I didn't go into this expecting that it would be my new favorite thing. It was not my new favorite thing.

Lilly:15:53

I quite enjoyed this book, although, like I said earlier, there were definitely moments that I identified that I didn't get it. Like I understood what was happening on the page, but didn't really get it,

Sara:16:09

was an emotional reaction that Tingle was, Trying to evoke that you didn't have.

Lilly:16:15

Yeah. But overall, I think the quiet tension of the sort of interpersonal horror paired with the sudden graphic, violent, supernatural visions created a very eerie atmosphere. It had that sort of psychological horror aspect where Rose was trying to figure out what was even real, is something that I quite enjoy. If you were looking for a spooky book, this totally hits the Mark

Sara:16:43

This definitely is a spooky book. Yep.

Lilly:16:48

All right. Well have come to the spoiler section, but first, who should read this book?

Sara:16:53

You should read this book if you, are queer and have religious trauma

Lilly:16:58

Yeah, and like horror, that's important.

Sara:17:01

And like horror. Or if you just like horror and you don't have trauma, It might not hit as hard, but you should still read it. It's still gonna be a good book.

Lilly:17:11

And it's pretty quick. I read it in one afternoon, I think.

Sara:17:15

Yeah, I read it. I think over the course of four hours spread out over a couple of days, it does go by very quickly.

Lilly:17:22

So it's just just a nice little appetizer before Halloween.

17:29

The remainder of this episode contains spoilers

Sara:17:37

Okay, so, you had a rebuttal. To my statement about the two different kinds of horror, feeling a little two separate and not working together for me,

Lilly:17:49

I might have given away my cards, shown my hand when I mentioned Rose, trying to figure out what was real and what wasn't. I think part of the, how do I say this without using the word horror for the 5000th time part of the awfulness of her environment was that she had no power. and part of that was in no one believing her or at least telling them they didn't believe her. so this sort of smash cut between a, a demon snapping a girl's neck almost right in front of her, and then everyone dismissing it and saying No, you're just a silly girl. Or whatever they say on the page, it's close to that.

Sara:18:35

It's basically, that's the gist of it. I agree with you. Actually like that did work very well, but She figures out what's going on pretty quickly. And after that, I think the horror has less impact because there's not that tension, like that psychological tension of trying to figure out how much she can trust her senses, how much she can trust what people around her are telling her. she knows what's going on at that point.

Lilly:19:05

You are right. As soon as she figures it out, it becomes an action novel, But that's kind Just the pitfall of horror. I, okay. I can't complain too much because I am always stuck in this limbo between, I want the book to tell me what's going on. Like I want the answers, but the second I get the answers, it's not scary anymore. So I understand why stories withhold that information, but I also always want it So this book gave me what I wanted and I got what I deserved.

Sara:19:39

I just I don't know. I wish that we had gotten the answers a little farther along in the novel and that there had been a little less time spent on the action side of things. not that it would've made me like it anymore because that would've been more horror, and again, I don't do well with horror, but I feel like it would've worked better as a horror novel. I don't know, there just wasn't as much horror in this book as I was expecting.

Lilly:20:08

Yeah, I mean it's bloody and there's like some uncomfortable descriptions, but it's it didn't freak me out after Rose stole the paperwork that explained exactly what was going on.

Sara:20:19

Yeah, I like I wish that had been closer to the 75% mark than the 50% mark.

Lilly:20:24

I think That would make it a stronger horror novel. But I think that would also, I don't think this is really a horror novel. I think it's kind of a victory anthem for people who have been deprogrammed or left their grown religion or whatever the, there's a word for that. Family of origin. Family of origin,

Sara:20:43

Okay. Yeah, I agree with that.

Lilly:20:45

and it walks the line at the beginning. but only to set up how triumphant rose is at the end.

Sara:20:52

That's fair.

Lilly:20:53

So I agree. Not that scary.

Sara:20:57

Yeah you make a good point. Maybe this is just a a case of having mismatching expectations

Lilly:21:03

Yeah.

Sara:21:04

for the book going in.

Lilly:21:05

And that, I touched on it when I talked about how blunt some of the hey, maybe conversion camps are mean which sounds absurd out of context, but when this is a book that is trying to speak to people who much closer to that issue and not like completely turn them away and ruin their day. I can see the benefit of, Yeah, just coming out and saying it and also giving Rose an unequivocably happy ending.

Sara:21:37

I wanted her to have that happy ending, like no bones about that. I wanted her to have the triumphant ending too.

Lilly:21:44

The pacing definitely makes it not a horror novel. I could see a different version of this book where she has to do more investigating or she doesn't believe the answers right away. maybe they were just hints as opposed to a, here is a perfect diagram of our entire demon plot. And then if we had had that like tension of disbelieving herself, maybe she had met Saul earlier and then she would have two competing influences. Saul who had escaped their small town versus her who are doing everything they can to keep her there and keep her under their thumb, it could have ridden out that horror for longer.

Sara:22:25

also wanted more background information on the demon plot,

Lilly:22:30

Now, see, now we're back into that limbo of, I want all of the information, but giving me all of the information ruins the horror

Sara:22:39

If you had given it late enough, I think it wouldn't have ruined the horror. even if you had just kept it as is and given us more of it, that wouldn't have ruined the horror'cause the horror was already ruined. But I have so many questions about how it got started, how they had this technology to do this. Like just, I have questions,

Lilly:23:01

So for listeners who probably have even more questions, this gay conversion camp would, Connect demons to gay people and then the demons would just physically torture them if they thought gay thoughts. And so no gay people who went to the camp would ever think gay thoughts again. Otherwise they'd get tortured to death eventually,

Sara:23:22

is the implication that it's not only gay, I mean it's primarily gay people, but it's not only gay people because they say, they talk about sin. Not specifically after someone else, I mean someone of the same gender, but like other, so I, yeah, I got the impression that they would occasionally, you wanted to live a life free of whatever your sin of choice was,

Lilly:23:48

I think that was the camp's propaganda. A, they didn't wanna actually say the word gay, and B, they wanted to imply that anyone went there of their own free will, at least that's how I interpreted that.

Sara:23:59

could be. I like, I definitely thought that it was 99% gay conversion, but.

Lilly:24:05

If they don't come right out and say it, I think that's probably because it's a like a dirty word to them. They probably said unnatural urges or something.

Sara:24:12

I didn't mark down any quotes or anything. I had very bad notes for this book. And that I had no notes for this book. but there's a way that they talk about it at one point. where they're not talking about, about anything unnatural, but they're saying something about it, it's not sex or lust related at all. The conversation that they're having. That just made me wonder if the camp had used this demon pairing for other sins.

Lilly:24:41

Maybe, I don't know.

Sara:24:43

irrelevant because it is a gay conversion

Lilly:24:46

demons were really fun though for, you know, a definition of fun. The definition of fun written by someone who likes horror We had a couple of glimpses of the dimension that these monsters came from they refer to as hell. There is some conversation in the book around like, aren't these just Animals or creatures from a different place don't follow our rules?'cause it's a different place and You know how much of religion is just transposed notes and how much of it is truly spiritual, I thought was very interesting. The twist that hell is actually cold was very fun. they brought up Dante's Inferno.

Sara:25:25

I liked that

Lilly:25:27

of the lore around the demons was great.

Sara:25:29

and I wanted to know more of it.

Lilly:25:31

Oh, the couple of scenes we got of them torturing people in hell was gross. I'm smiling. You can't tell. I'm

Sara:25:39

That was

Lilly:25:39

smiling,

Sara:25:41

It was unpleasant. I Actually almost think that this book would've worked better as a movie.

Lilly:25:48

interesting. Is that because you're more okay with straightforward shallow plot lines in a movie?

Sara:25:54

Yes. Absolutely. Actually.

Lilly:25:58

yeah. Everything this book is saying, it just says on the page,

Sara:26:01

Yeah.

Lilly:26:02

it does make for a rather short conversation about it. So there were three times in this book where I wrote a note that basically amounted to question mark. And every single one of those was addressed later in the text. So that was nice.

Sara:26:19

What were your three

Lilly:26:21

First it's casually dropped that Rose is 20 years old in her senior year of high school. And I think my note specifically was well, he's gonna have to explain this and it is her weird cult. Has everyone take two years off of schooling, non-consecutive to focus on the weird tenets of their crazy cult

Sara:26:43

Yeah,

Lilly:26:44

They're a non-specific or made up cult, I should say Christian for sure, in origin, but not like one that is around that someone could get mad about

Sara:26:54

yes. It's not a one-to-one reference with the religious cult in the real world as far as I'm aware.

Lilly:27:01

You know that group of Christians who really hates gay people? That one

Sara:27:07

yeah when, he first mentions that she's 20 and also that she's a high school senior, I was like, what is going on here? But he does, explain it and he explains it pretty quickly too.

Lilly:27:18

he does.

Sara:27:18

you don't have long to wonder

Lilly:27:20

And that's definitely part of the world building, right? That's totally normal to her and to this community because so many people there. Are part of this, I hesitate to call it a culture.

Sara:27:30

Religious organization

Lilly:27:32

yeah, but it's more than that'cause it's in the family life, like it's so insidious.

Sara:27:37

Religious lifestyle.

Lilly:27:38

The other thing that I noted was that Rose referred to something that she hyper focuses on. and that's, a key word, It didn't feel like she was using it colloquially and she indeed was not. Later it is explicitly stated that she is in fact autistic. I guess that was a moment of me saying, Hey, thanks for just putting this down in the book and not being ambiguous around it.

Sara:28:03

Yeah. And I really enjoyed seeing an autistic main character in a horror novel survive a horror novel, because she kicks ass.

Lilly:28:13

she does. And there's a romance plot line in this book that we probably aren't gonna touch on at all. it's part of her happy ending, right? She gets back with the girl that she was ripped away from forced to forget, which is gnarly. about horror having an entire life you don't remember. Crazy. But the difference between her parents who punish her for and stop her from her, like self-soothing like she taps on her fingers in a specific pattern and we see that come up a lot in the book of her trying to repress it or having people, react poorly to it. And then at the end, Before she has her memories back of Willow, her once and future girlfriend Willow does the tapping with her and it's like the first time.

Sara:29:01

was such a sweet

Lilly:29:02

Yes. Oh my God, that was so touching. Absolutely heartbreaking.

Sara:29:07

Yeah. I really liked the way that Tingle wrote their romance because it's not a traditional romance because neither of'em Willow, I guess, remembers Rose a certain extent. not entirely clear on that. But they've both been through this camp Damascus, this gay conversion program. And in the beginning, you know, if they express their feelings for the other. Even just internally, a demon comes up and punishes them or the other one somehow. So they have a very fine line to walk, reestablishing their connection. And seeing that come to life and come to fruition felt really satisfying. Like they earned their happy ending.

Lilly:29:51

Oh, did they ever earn their happy ending?

Sara:29:54

Yeah,

Lilly:29:56

The element that the demons can read. their victims' thoughts. And so it wasn't just, you can't act on, gay feelings, big gay feelings, but the fact that you can't even acknowledge it to yourself is such a different level of and

Sara:30:14

Not even that because At the very beginning of the book when Rose hasn't acknowledged that she's gay and she's having feelings for a friend of hers, but she doesn't understand that they're romantic feelings or sexual feelings at all. She hasn't comprehended that, but the demon certainly knows that. So not that you can't have thoughts where you're aware of what you're doing. You can't even like subconsciously have these thoughts.

Lilly:30:40

Yeah, and that is, something in there about religious programming. Demons are a good analogy for basically anything. Huh.

Sara:30:48

Yes.

Lilly:30:49

well, Unfortunately, the last thing I wrote my big question mark question was why the demons were wearing name tags. Now, I loved the juxtaposition of these gross, scraggly humanoid demons wearing like a red polo shirt and slacks. That's baffling and hilarious, and I'm with it a hundred percent.

Sara:31:09

they're gonna go off to work at Staples after they're done with their shift torturing people.

Lilly:31:15

And all have name tags with their real demon name on them, which is how Rose figures it out. She sees Patched, I think is her demon.

Sara:31:26

Yeah.

Lilly:31:26

She sees her name tag and Googles it and is like, oh yeah, that's who this is. Now I know what's going on. Or at least kind of knows. And that's how she gets put down the path of figuring it all out. And it's like they could have just not worn name tags. that's pretty convenient.

Sara:31:45

It's a little convenient. Yeah, I had so many questions around that and we don't necessarily get them answered, but Rose has questions about it too. So it feels like at least Tingle is acknowledging Yes, this is a weird thing.

Lilly:31:58

Yes and, so that was enough for me to Write in the margin next to that note. Well, Okay. He kind of addresses it.

Sara:32:06

Yeah, You know that he understands the question and he's choosing not to

Lilly:32:11

Yes, The other thing that was a little convenient was when she gets adrenaline in the ambulance. cause after the car fire, she kills willow's demon on accident by locking in a car on fire, and subsequently gets burned the hell out of. And the adrenaline, like resurfaces a bunch of the memories that Camp Damascus had repressed in her. And in the text she's like, oh, and I know because I know weird facts about stuff that that's exactly how adrenaline works. So that must be what's happening. And I was like okay.

Sara:32:43

She does know a lot of random facts though. So again, it didn't feel I mean it was convenient. Yes. But it did feel true to the character.

Lilly:32:51

no. Her knowing that was not the problem.

Sara:32:54

was telling the reader

Lilly:32:55

Notice No just it happening just it happening and and the memory that happens to resurface is of her getting the demon attached to her. Not like, From when she was four. Like, come on,

Sara:33:09

It was very

Lilly:33:10

That's all. It didn't ruin the book for me. I was just reading that going, alright, I guess you had to get this in there somehow.

Sara:33:16

Yeah.

Lilly:33:18

I think the last thing I really wanna talk about is the mom.

Sara:33:21

I have a lot of questions about her too.

Lilly:33:23

I have such mixed feel. So the mom is just as bad as the dad in every way. Completely complicit. I mean, The perpetrator of all of these, frankly, crimes against Rose, although they obviously think they're helping her because they're terrible people. But when Rose cracks the case. breaks into her therapist's office, who's actually not a therapist. Shocker. He works in a church. Wow. who would've thought gets all the paperwork, figures out what's happening, is on her way home, obviously her parents have figured out what's going on because they're the ones who sent her to the camp. They know exactly what happened to her. and her mom.

Sara:34:02

Now, this is actually a little later than that because she's already got the papers. She's figured out that her therapist is into things. She's contacting the other people whose name she found

Lilly:34:13

that's right.

Sara:34:14

on these papers, and she meets up with one of them and is a little bit too enthusiastic and ends up. Giving it away that she knows more about what happened to her than she should. that other person contacts her parents or church leaders have already been suspicious about her.

Lilly:34:35

She's been meeting up with other people who've been to Camp Damascus for no reason. Heavy air quotes, But this was the straw that broke the camel's back. You're right. It was, it was far

Sara:34:46

yeah.

Lilly:34:47

paperwork, but still after the paperwork.

Sara:34:49

It was after the paperwork.

Lilly:34:50

Yes. But so she's on her way home from this her mom meets her at the entrance of the neighborhood with a packed bag and is like Your dad has the Camp Damascus people at the house, they're sending you back you idiot, basically. just tells her to run away. And I was such a moment of mixed feelings because glad that she did that because otherwise obviously the whole book would've been over Rose would've been back in Camp Damascus and brainwashed all over again. but also the mom clearly still thought that it was the right thing to do to send her to Camp Damascus. She just thought it was pointless. it was, there was a lot going on.

Sara:35:30

Her mother in that instance was almost sympathetic because I don't know about you, but as I was reading this book, I almost got the sense that her mother other was not abused, like definitely not abused, but Was still in that relationship with her father because that was the thing that one does, like divorce is a is not a thing

Lilly:35:58

they're in a patriarchal cult. Her mom is getting just as much shit as roses. Just different because it doesn't have the homophobia Angle.

Sara:36:06

Yeah. And so this is the one instance that she has to. show us as reader and to show Rose that she recognizes that it's a bad thing. And she almost gets there because she packs this bag. She tells Rose, you have to leave because your, your dad knows that you've remembered time at Camp Damascus. And then Rose tells her mother that she should leave too. And her mom is like, you're a horrible child. I hate you. Or something like that. I mean, she, she says something really awful and I was like, oh, there goes my sympathy.

Lilly:36:39

It's, she calls her spoiled, and I assume that that's coming from The mom has nowhere to go. Neither does rose. Really? It's kind of a total fluke that she finds Saul who takes her in. But I think that's Like the mom is coming from the angle of, yeah, running away is better than going to Camp Damascus, but being homeless is not better than, living with, I'll call him an abuser. He takes a 20 year old's door away. That ain't right. I don't know what it is, but not right.

Sara:37:11

Although scene specifically where her door is removed, there is some question. And not that I think that her door is actually there, like I do think her door has been removed, but there is some question about unreliable narrator, demon visions, weird demon stuff going on there.

Lilly:37:29

Well, That's when she thinks the demon visions might not be real. Then we find out that they are real and her dad says, you've never had a door. And then she has a memory later where of course she did

Sara:37:42

He's definitely gaslighting her, but she thought that she had a door like 24 hours previous and she looks at the doorframe and it's like couldn't have within the last 24 hours.

Lilly:37:55

Oh no. I interpreted that as he just used some putty and filled in the holes and also painted the doorframe. When he took the door off.

Sara:38:04

Yeah, but it would probably be no, like depending on how long ago it was, it didn't sound like it was that long ago. Like it would probably be noticeable. She thinks it would be noticeable if it was a recent thing.

Lilly:38:18

I am not going to give the father that benefit of the doubt. I don't think he has earned that from what he does in this book. I think he did that on purpose to fuck with her,

Sara:38:25

it was possible.

Lilly:38:27

but that is part of that beginning moment of the book where, we don't know anything about Rose yet, so we are trying to figure out what the hell is going on. While is Also in this very uncertain place, no, I think the dad is abusive.

Sara:38:40

there's no question about the dad being abusive. Yes, we

Lilly:38:44

Yeah.

Sara:38:44

disagree there.

Lilly:38:50

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:38:54

Come disagree with us! We are on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail dot com.

Lilly:39:06

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Sara:39:14

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find our show notes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:39:20

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:39:25

Bye!