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Steam
A vaporous presence is slowly invading San Francisco. One by one, selected gay men are seduced by it--then they disappear, leaving only a ghoulish reminder of their existence. Can anyone stop this shapeless terror?
398 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
May 18, 2012
I first read this book some time ago. The author, Jay B. Laws, died tragically young with only (I believe) two books to his credit. His death is a sad loss to gay literature because I've long felt that STEAM is not only the best gay horror novel I've ever read, but also one of the best horror novels I've ever read--period.
I was always impressed by how the book works on so many levels. It is permeated with a kind of creepiness that I've only found elsewhere in novels like Peter Straub's GHOST STORY and King's THE SHINING. In addition, STEAM is clearly a metaphor for the early years of the AIDS crises. As such, it can come across as a dated work, especially to those of us who lived through the heyday of the epidemic. To younger readers, some of the themes may be incomprehensible, not having lived through that harrowing time.
In brief, STEAM tells the story of a haunted bath house in San Francisco inhabited by an evil entity. It's not a terribly complex story but it's a gripping one. Moreover, unlike other gay-themed horror novels of that era, it does not rely on soft core porn to make an impact. Instead, there is a horrific and ominous sense of figurative walls closing in around the protagonist and a feeling that his options are being cut off one by one. The parallels between the plight of the hero,and the plights of those real life men who were infected in the 1980s and had no hope of surviving, are clear and chilling.
Any gay man who wants a sense of what things were like when AIDS was is its infancy, before HIV testing and cocktails existed, should read this book. Laws manages to capture the fear and horror we all felt in our day-to-day lives by embodying it in the bath house demon. Truly, this book is a modern genre classic.
I was always impressed by how the book works on so many levels. It is permeated with a kind of creepiness that I've only found elsewhere in novels like Peter Straub's GHOST STORY and King's THE SHINING. In addition, STEAM is clearly a metaphor for the early years of the AIDS crises. As such, it can come across as a dated work, especially to those of us who lived through the heyday of the epidemic. To younger readers, some of the themes may be incomprehensible, not having lived through that harrowing time.
In brief, STEAM tells the story of a haunted bath house in San Francisco inhabited by an evil entity. It's not a terribly complex story but it's a gripping one. Moreover, unlike other gay-themed horror novels of that era, it does not rely on soft core porn to make an impact. Instead, there is a horrific and ominous sense of figurative walls closing in around the protagonist and a feeling that his options are being cut off one by one. The parallels between the plight of the hero,and the plights of those real life men who were infected in the 1980s and had no hope of surviving, are clear and chilling.
Any gay man who wants a sense of what things were like when AIDS was is its infancy, before HIV testing and cocktails existed, should read this book. Laws manages to capture the fear and horror we all felt in our day-to-day lives by embodying it in the bath house demon. Truly, this book is a modern genre classic.
June 15, 2022
Where can I start with this book? It's riveting, hypnotic, creepy as hell, erotic, full of soul, a mystical mind bending experience all at once.
No part of this story was irrelevant. It all comes together in a tightly wrapped package.
No part of this story was irrelevant. It all comes together in a tightly wrapped package.
July 19, 2019
While this was an ambitious novel with a unique concept, it failed to draw me in as much as I'd hoped. I never connected with the characters and felt this was one of those stories that was more about a concept or theme than it was about telling story. It was sorely in need of a good editor, as the book repeated the same ideas over and over until it was just like, enough already, we get the metaphor you're going for. I understand that this was written by a victim of the AIDS crisis at its peak and that gives the book a lot of poignancy. But this was also very much a first novel and saw the same indulgences we see in a lot of early works--namely, repetition and reliance on purple prose.
May 21, 2019
More accurately, it's 4.7 stars.
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
This review has been originally posted at Gay Book Reviews - check it out!
Gosh, what a ride! This was a real rollercoaster: whoever can read the two forewords without getting moist eyes has had their hearts (or their lachrymal glands) removed; then, the novel proper begins and is a bit confusing in the beginning, but oh so captivating; and finally, it runs full steam ahead (no pun intended), and you won’t be able to put it down ere you reach the last line.
First, we get a prequel story about David Walker, a young New Yorker coming home from a night of drinking, boogying, and doing party drugs. He surprises a burglar in his flat, who threatens him with a knife. He is able to flee to the roof-top, but when the burglar runs after him, his only way out is to jump off the building. Cut. The camera zooms on Flint, owner of a San Francisco bathhouse called the Caverns which the city authorities have closed down with the outbreak of the AIDS-epidemy. He’s headed for the building that houses his former business; being diagnosed with HIV, he plans to top himself off while floating in one of the Caverns’s bathtubs. But when he’s sliced his wrists open and waits for death to get him, someone (something?) else claims him instead…
And we come back to David, who has apparently survived his fall from the NY-rooftop. He’s now living in San Franciso, working as a waiter and writing porn stories to add a little extra to the pot. His roomie and good friend Eddie is meanwhile slowly wasting away in a hospital bed, victim of that devilishly uncurable little virus that has been decimating men and women all over the country for the past few years. David feels strangely peaceless, no matter here he is, be it in the gym with his friend Jack, be it in Eddie’s hospital room during one of his frequent visits, be it behind his typewriter at home. We also meet Bobby and his lover Mick, where the latter is attracted by an empty telephone booth floating strangely in the bay mists, beckoning for him to take a phone call from nobody knows whom.
We encounter several other people, druggies, kids, gay men, most of whom are suddenly snatched away from where they’ve been leading their ordinary lives. The strange fog that has invaded the city after a surprisingly violent thunderstorm starts to diffuse throughout the metropolis just as odd, over-sensual dreams start to permeate people’s minds during the nights. But only Bobby and David, unbeknownst to each other, feel more and more uneasy as people disappear without almost anybody noticing. This preliminary stage of the novel where the setting is prepared is rather longish, but as nothing adds up for the moment and the writing is tense and well handled, this reader wouldn’t complain: I was completely hooked. As things got odder and odder, and the tension of undeniable suspense set in, I felt it almost impossible to put the book down. What is it that draws Mick to that phone booth, what is it that makes him answer the call that’s ringing into the empty night, and what is it that makes him fall to the monster of the dark in the end? And when he disappears (don’t worry, the author let’s you guess by now why and where he goes), will his lover Bobby be able to find and save him? Will he and David and an unknown, red-haired woman they both have been seeing in their dreams be able to save the city, to save the souls of the vanished people, to save the world?
This novel has been first published in 1991 by young writer Jay B. Laws, who has written it as a sort of reaction to his own being diagnosed with HIV (he passed away only a year later, aged 34). It’s a powerful, strangely alluring book with several layers. I was foremost captivated by an underlying undertone of simmering anger and complete confusion as to what is going on, which is all the more thrilling as the novel (plot and writing style) are clearly very masterfully thought-through and organized. The horror of the book is mostly made up in the reader’s imagination, as is often the case in good horror story-telling. The late Jay B. Laws has a knack of creating a strong relation with the characters he shows us: he makes us understand them, then like them. But beware! Choose carefully whom you love in this book! Don’t get attached to the secondary characters, because when at last you feel comfortably familiar with their personae, he snitches them and leaves you wanting and empty! The book’s program seems to be despair and leave all hope behind… And yet, there is one thing that can redeem all of us, and it’s… love, of course.
This is not your run-of-the-mill HEA romance (and I won’t be a spoilsport and tell you if there’s any HEA at all to be had in this read), no straight and easy plot. No, you have to follow the twists and turns, rendered approachable by an easy, sometimes poetic language; you have to be patient. We do get chemistry, that much I can reveal, and we do get tender moments. I really enjoyed the read—I feel compelled to repeat, “What a ride!” I think it has been a tremendously excellent idea of ReQueered Tales to (re-)publish this out-of-print novel in ebook format. Their whole business idea, by the way, strikes me as excellent—we absolutely need to keep our gay history, the history of its writers, and their books alive by making them accessible.
I received an ARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
This review has been originally posted at Gay Book Reviews - check it out!
Gosh, what a ride! This was a real rollercoaster: whoever can read the two forewords without getting moist eyes has had their hearts (or their lachrymal glands) removed; then, the novel proper begins and is a bit confusing in the beginning, but oh so captivating; and finally, it runs full steam ahead (no pun intended), and you won’t be able to put it down ere you reach the last line.
First, we get a prequel story about David Walker, a young New Yorker coming home from a night of drinking, boogying, and doing party drugs. He surprises a burglar in his flat, who threatens him with a knife. He is able to flee to the roof-top, but when the burglar runs after him, his only way out is to jump off the building. Cut. The camera zooms on Flint, owner of a San Francisco bathhouse called the Caverns which the city authorities have closed down with the outbreak of the AIDS-epidemy. He’s headed for the building that houses his former business; being diagnosed with HIV, he plans to top himself off while floating in one of the Caverns’s bathtubs. But when he’s sliced his wrists open and waits for death to get him, someone (something?) else claims him instead…
And we come back to David, who has apparently survived his fall from the NY-rooftop. He’s now living in San Franciso, working as a waiter and writing porn stories to add a little extra to the pot. His roomie and good friend Eddie is meanwhile slowly wasting away in a hospital bed, victim of that devilishly uncurable little virus that has been decimating men and women all over the country for the past few years. David feels strangely peaceless, no matter here he is, be it in the gym with his friend Jack, be it in Eddie’s hospital room during one of his frequent visits, be it behind his typewriter at home. We also meet Bobby and his lover Mick, where the latter is attracted by an empty telephone booth floating strangely in the bay mists, beckoning for him to take a phone call from nobody knows whom.
We encounter several other people, druggies, kids, gay men, most of whom are suddenly snatched away from where they’ve been leading their ordinary lives. The strange fog that has invaded the city after a surprisingly violent thunderstorm starts to diffuse throughout the metropolis just as odd, over-sensual dreams start to permeate people’s minds during the nights. But only Bobby and David, unbeknownst to each other, feel more and more uneasy as people disappear without almost anybody noticing. This preliminary stage of the novel where the setting is prepared is rather longish, but as nothing adds up for the moment and the writing is tense and well handled, this reader wouldn’t complain: I was completely hooked. As things got odder and odder, and the tension of undeniable suspense set in, I felt it almost impossible to put the book down. What is it that draws Mick to that phone booth, what is it that makes him answer the call that’s ringing into the empty night, and what is it that makes him fall to the monster of the dark in the end? And when he disappears (don’t worry, the author let’s you guess by now why and where he goes), will his lover Bobby be able to find and save him? Will he and David and an unknown, red-haired woman they both have been seeing in their dreams be able to save the city, to save the souls of the vanished people, to save the world?
This novel has been first published in 1991 by young writer Jay B. Laws, who has written it as a sort of reaction to his own being diagnosed with HIV (he passed away only a year later, aged 34). It’s a powerful, strangely alluring book with several layers. I was foremost captivated by an underlying undertone of simmering anger and complete confusion as to what is going on, which is all the more thrilling as the novel (plot and writing style) are clearly very masterfully thought-through and organized. The horror of the book is mostly made up in the reader’s imagination, as is often the case in good horror story-telling. The late Jay B. Laws has a knack of creating a strong relation with the characters he shows us: he makes us understand them, then like them. But beware! Choose carefully whom you love in this book! Don’t get attached to the secondary characters, because when at last you feel comfortably familiar with their personae, he snitches them and leaves you wanting and empty! The book’s program seems to be despair and leave all hope behind… And yet, there is one thing that can redeem all of us, and it’s… love, of course.
This is not your run-of-the-mill HEA romance (and I won’t be a spoilsport and tell you if there’s any HEA at all to be had in this read), no straight and easy plot. No, you have to follow the twists and turns, rendered approachable by an easy, sometimes poetic language; you have to be patient. We do get chemistry, that much I can reveal, and we do get tender moments. I really enjoyed the read—I feel compelled to repeat, “What a ride!” I think it has been a tremendously excellent idea of ReQueered Tales to (re-)publish this out-of-print novel in ebook format. Their whole business idea, by the way, strikes me as excellent—we absolutely need to keep our gay history, the history of its writers, and their books alive by making them accessible.
September 3, 2024
A monster made of negative energy settles into a shuttered bathhouse in 80s California, and builds up its power by picking off gay men yearning for a brighter, pre-AIDS past.
-
I'd read Laws other novel, The Unfinished, last year. Though far from perfect, it made me cry my eyes out. This one is more raunchy than my tastes lean, very much horror erotica, but the juxtaposition between sex and death in a book about a monster that starts its conquest by targeting AIDS sufferers is an apt one. I just could have done without maybe a sexual remark or mentioning on every page. If you took a shot of Vodka every time someone gets an erection you would die. It's too heavy on metaphors and adjectives, overly purple, with a lot of repeated words and ideas. There are way too many characters and perspectives. I wasnt even clear who the leads were until three quarters in. Lots of first novel energy. It could have easily had 100 of its 400 pages skimmed off in a line edit.
But you can really see the lost potential in Laws. There are plenty of effectively eerie moments, and lots of super nasty in-your-face ones. The final 50 pages, which take place at the bathhouse, are full of gory and surreal imagery, as the place becomes a malible disco-themed hell, complete with trapped souls suffering group and personal torments. The book also offers a window into what it was like to be a gay man who lived through the free-wheelling, pleasure-seeking seventies, and then the terrifying, deadly eighties. The way the monster uses nostalgia for the good old days is poignant and sad. I just wish someone had paired Laws up with a high-grade scalpel-wielding editor to make the overall product easier to read.
-
I'd read Laws other novel, The Unfinished, last year. Though far from perfect, it made me cry my eyes out. This one is more raunchy than my tastes lean, very much horror erotica, but the juxtaposition between sex and death in a book about a monster that starts its conquest by targeting AIDS sufferers is an apt one. I just could have done without maybe a sexual remark or mentioning on every page. If you took a shot of Vodka every time someone gets an erection you would die. It's too heavy on metaphors and adjectives, overly purple, with a lot of repeated words and ideas. There are way too many characters and perspectives. I wasnt even clear who the leads were until three quarters in. Lots of first novel energy. It could have easily had 100 of its 400 pages skimmed off in a line edit.
But you can really see the lost potential in Laws. There are plenty of effectively eerie moments, and lots of super nasty in-your-face ones. The final 50 pages, which take place at the bathhouse, are full of gory and surreal imagery, as the place becomes a malible disco-themed hell, complete with trapped souls suffering group and personal torments. The book also offers a window into what it was like to be a gay man who lived through the free-wheelling, pleasure-seeking seventies, and then the terrifying, deadly eighties. The way the monster uses nostalgia for the good old days is poignant and sad. I just wish someone had paired Laws up with a high-grade scalpel-wielding editor to make the overall product easier to read.
December 25, 2018
"I didn’t believe myself. I wanted to believe him. His steady calm was like a flannel blanket I could pull around my shoulders to shake this chill in my bones. Let’s face it: what was the alternative? A Freddy Kruger boogie man piercing my dreams? Eddie Dead (undead) come to drag me back to his new hell?"
Finally!!! This was a never ending tale that trapped me inside and I finally escaped.
A coworker and I found this book by accident. We were trying to find s.t.e.a.m. books for the library and this popped up. The cover was so ridiculous that I had to have it in my collection. (And this is why my collection is overflowing)
San Fransisco was once a joyful place. Music flowed, free love was for all, and laughter waved throughout the streets. Until the fog came to town. As the fog drifted down from the hills, strange things started to happen. People started to disappear and others started to have heart-pounding nightmares.
The fog wanted one thing and one thing only, Revenge! You see the fog, run! You hear the phone ring, don’t answer it! You must escape the fog at all costs.
This could have been interesting but it was a hundred and fifty pages too long. It started off really good and then it went on, and on, and on some more. You think it’s finally over and it still continued with its repetitiveness. There are only so many times that you can read about men being seduced by this tempting fog.
Steam could have been a story worth talking about but it looks like I’ll just have the cover to show off.
Just beware of the fog named Victor!
Finally!!! This was a never ending tale that trapped me inside and I finally escaped.
A coworker and I found this book by accident. We were trying to find s.t.e.a.m. books for the library and this popped up. The cover was so ridiculous that I had to have it in my collection. (And this is why my collection is overflowing)
San Fransisco was once a joyful place. Music flowed, free love was for all, and laughter waved throughout the streets. Until the fog came to town. As the fog drifted down from the hills, strange things started to happen. People started to disappear and others started to have heart-pounding nightmares.
The fog wanted one thing and one thing only, Revenge! You see the fog, run! You hear the phone ring, don’t answer it! You must escape the fog at all costs.
This could have been interesting but it was a hundred and fifty pages too long. It started off really good and then it went on, and on, and on some more. You think it’s finally over and it still continued with its repetitiveness. There are only so many times that you can read about men being seduced by this tempting fog.
Steam could have been a story worth talking about but it looks like I’ll just have the cover to show off.
Just beware of the fog named Victor!
January 26, 2020
What I Think: Forgive me for this long review. The tale took me through the wringer and I just had to pour it all out. As always, the intro to this Author’s tales pushes me close to tears but the dedication made my tears flow. Thank you again, ReQueered Tales. I’m even more thankful that he is immortalized in these words that leave a forever mark in your heart.
A terrifying twist on the zombie apocalypse, I was sucked into this tale from page one where it meandered a bit as it set its tone and foundation then began to build up, the horror showing itself in bits and pieces until it gets real. It was pure genius choosing something that’s synonymous with soothing and pleasure and turning it on its head as it becomes the lair of a ravenous monster.
The warnings the mind gives were the worst, as each victim realizes too late that they’ve been caught in a web they can’t escape. The language is raw and real and all the more terrifying for it as it paints a picture so vivid you can feel it. I could feel tendrils of fear stroking my heart as I got caught up in the pregnant darkness, as David and Bobby fought for their lives and sanity, believing what they knew to be true even as they wanted to reject it, refusing to give in to the creature stealing their friends and taunting them.
This author is truly master of his world and when I struggled to find the right words to describe how this creature tortured his targets, he provided the term. Rape. They were being violated in the privacy and safety of their bedroom, homes, and minds.
Love how his tales always have at least one person who’s willing to be humane ie see queer people the same as any others. It’s a shame we live in a world where the barest of civilities, duties and humanity is hailed and celebrated. As always the tenacity of the human spirit never fails to be awe-inspiring. David and Bobby come to embody this tenacity and steel wrought will in my mind. The fact that even at our worst there’s a strength within us that can change the world makes one wonder if it is shaped only by tragedy or if it already lies dormant within us, waiting for tragedy to bring it out.
The cowardice and reluctance of the bearer of their solutions embodies perfectly the way the world reacted to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The world was content to ignore and watch, refusing to help because they thought it was a queer disease, then a minority disease but as soon as straight people and ‘majorities’ began getting it? They needed solutions now! How dare they? I was so filled with rage at this point that I had to just stop for a few hours before I turned aggressive. But even I couldn’t hold on to that anger for long, and it crumbled to dust as I was overcome by grief with each life taken.
I am no longer Christian but I believe in the Bible as well as all holy books as a joint effort of human wisdom and the divine within us and this monsters style is downright biblical. The Bible says we are drawn out and exploited by our own desires which is why we must remain ever vigilant and consciously try to fix every flaw and crack in our morality and this was so apt because it fucking hurt to watch people’s desires turned into weapons they couldn’t hide from for how do you hide from yourself?
But as David rightly said, the monster can’t rob them of love. Everything but love. Just as the monster couldn’t hide from its own desires. In Nigeria, there’s a proverb that goes – the thing that will kill a child starts as an appetite. I’ve always completed it in my head with, “and satiation destroyed it.” The solution turned out to be as simple as granting a child its wish. A solution wrought of desperation, powered by love and light yet powerful enough to not only banish evil but to contain it.
Verdict? A seductively horrifying reminder to celebrate the good, the bad, the terrible, the perfection but above all, celebrate the sheer joy of life itself!
A terrifying twist on the zombie apocalypse, I was sucked into this tale from page one where it meandered a bit as it set its tone and foundation then began to build up, the horror showing itself in bits and pieces until it gets real. It was pure genius choosing something that’s synonymous with soothing and pleasure and turning it on its head as it becomes the lair of a ravenous monster.
The warnings the mind gives were the worst, as each victim realizes too late that they’ve been caught in a web they can’t escape. The language is raw and real and all the more terrifying for it as it paints a picture so vivid you can feel it. I could feel tendrils of fear stroking my heart as I got caught up in the pregnant darkness, as David and Bobby fought for their lives and sanity, believing what they knew to be true even as they wanted to reject it, refusing to give in to the creature stealing their friends and taunting them.
This author is truly master of his world and when I struggled to find the right words to describe how this creature tortured his targets, he provided the term. Rape. They were being violated in the privacy and safety of their bedroom, homes, and minds.
Love how his tales always have at least one person who’s willing to be humane ie see queer people the same as any others. It’s a shame we live in a world where the barest of civilities, duties and humanity is hailed and celebrated. As always the tenacity of the human spirit never fails to be awe-inspiring. David and Bobby come to embody this tenacity and steel wrought will in my mind. The fact that even at our worst there’s a strength within us that can change the world makes one wonder if it is shaped only by tragedy or if it already lies dormant within us, waiting for tragedy to bring it out.
The cowardice and reluctance of the bearer of their solutions embodies perfectly the way the world reacted to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The world was content to ignore and watch, refusing to help because they thought it was a queer disease, then a minority disease but as soon as straight people and ‘majorities’ began getting it? They needed solutions now! How dare they? I was so filled with rage at this point that I had to just stop for a few hours before I turned aggressive. But even I couldn’t hold on to that anger for long, and it crumbled to dust as I was overcome by grief with each life taken.
I am no longer Christian but I believe in the Bible as well as all holy books as a joint effort of human wisdom and the divine within us and this monsters style is downright biblical. The Bible says we are drawn out and exploited by our own desires which is why we must remain ever vigilant and consciously try to fix every flaw and crack in our morality and this was so apt because it fucking hurt to watch people’s desires turned into weapons they couldn’t hide from for how do you hide from yourself?
But as David rightly said, the monster can’t rob them of love. Everything but love. Just as the monster couldn’t hide from its own desires. In Nigeria, there’s a proverb that goes – the thing that will kill a child starts as an appetite. I’ve always completed it in my head with, “and satiation destroyed it.” The solution turned out to be as simple as granting a child its wish. A solution wrought of desperation, powered by love and light yet powerful enough to not only banish evil but to contain it.
Verdict? A seductively horrifying reminder to celebrate the good, the bad, the terrible, the perfection but above all, celebrate the sheer joy of life itself!
April 14, 2022
HORROR IN A BATHHOUSE
At the beginning of Steam, Jay B. Laws writes: “How brightly the sunshine lit upon our faces. But the darkness, you see, had already crept in on cat feet. Crouched in the corner. Waiting.” Laws hooked me right here and didn’t let go until the end. The darkness in mood and setting that Laws establishes at the beginning of the novel never lets up. An allegory of the AIDS epidemic, Steam is a frightening book. The characters disappear, one by one, after having horrific dreams in which they are beckoned by a mysterious, sexy male voice named Victor to come to him.
Steam takes place in a foggy, rainy, and windy San Francisco. The fog, rain, and wind is endless, it never lets up. Laws is a master at describing the physical environment in which his characters go to their destinies.
David is the hero of Steam. After surviving a four-story fall off the roof of a building in New York, David isn’t a pushover. He moves to San Francisco to take care of his friend, Eddie, who is suffering from AIDS. David is brave. He has nightmares, also, but he tries to control his fear and not submit to Victor’s hypnotic voice: “Fear, the barrier behind which lay all knowledge . . . If he could move this rock of fear aside just enough to slide on by, then perhaps its crushing weight would liken into its true shape: a mirage, created by his own mind.”
David and Bobby, whose lover, Mick, succumbed to Victor’s enticement, eventually trace Victor to his hideout in the Caverns, a legendary bathhouse that has been closed by the city. Their confrontation with Victor makes for an exciting and bloody climax to the novel.
Laws is prescient when he has David say: “One day, I just might gather enough courage to write about it, to make sure there’s a true record of what happened. Memory is short. As years go by it’ll all seem a fantastic nightmare, unreal. But someone may need to know one day. In case Victor—or something like him—comes back.”
Disco music provides an accompaniment to many scenes in Steam. The epigraph to the concluding section of the book is a quote from Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”: “Oh no not I; I will survive…” Sugar, a character who makes a brief appearance in the story, humorously observes: “Those fairy Bee Gees deserved to have their pricks cut off; they sang like their pricks were cut off; might as well make it god’s truth.”
Laws makes many references to The Wizard of Oz. One of the monsters that David encounters in a dream transforms “into something vaguely resembling one of the wicked witch’s flying monkeys.” The giant in one of David’s dreams tells him, “You have no power here.” This sentence is spoken several times in the novel. In another dream, David hears someone say, “Who shall it be, my pretties?” And this sentence, “The water made his once-handsome features tallow soft and malleable, like someone simultaneously melting and drowning,” made me think of the Witch when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on her. If only David could have thrown water on Victor and eliminated him! At times, Victor with his mysterious voice coming out of nowhere reminded me of the Wizard.
Jay B. Laws wrote Steam in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. Steam helps us remember not only the horrors but the courage displayed during that time. Laws was lost to AIDS in 1992 at the age of 34.
Grateful thanks to ReQueered Tales for republishing Steam.
At the beginning of Steam, Jay B. Laws writes: “How brightly the sunshine lit upon our faces. But the darkness, you see, had already crept in on cat feet. Crouched in the corner. Waiting.” Laws hooked me right here and didn’t let go until the end. The darkness in mood and setting that Laws establishes at the beginning of the novel never lets up. An allegory of the AIDS epidemic, Steam is a frightening book. The characters disappear, one by one, after having horrific dreams in which they are beckoned by a mysterious, sexy male voice named Victor to come to him.
Steam takes place in a foggy, rainy, and windy San Francisco. The fog, rain, and wind is endless, it never lets up. Laws is a master at describing the physical environment in which his characters go to their destinies.
David is the hero of Steam. After surviving a four-story fall off the roof of a building in New York, David isn’t a pushover. He moves to San Francisco to take care of his friend, Eddie, who is suffering from AIDS. David is brave. He has nightmares, also, but he tries to control his fear and not submit to Victor’s hypnotic voice: “Fear, the barrier behind which lay all knowledge . . . If he could move this rock of fear aside just enough to slide on by, then perhaps its crushing weight would liken into its true shape: a mirage, created by his own mind.”
David and Bobby, whose lover, Mick, succumbed to Victor’s enticement, eventually trace Victor to his hideout in the Caverns, a legendary bathhouse that has been closed by the city. Their confrontation with Victor makes for an exciting and bloody climax to the novel.
Laws is prescient when he has David say: “One day, I just might gather enough courage to write about it, to make sure there’s a true record of what happened. Memory is short. As years go by it’ll all seem a fantastic nightmare, unreal. But someone may need to know one day. In case Victor—or something like him—comes back.”
Disco music provides an accompaniment to many scenes in Steam. The epigraph to the concluding section of the book is a quote from Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”: “Oh no not I; I will survive…” Sugar, a character who makes a brief appearance in the story, humorously observes: “Those fairy Bee Gees deserved to have their pricks cut off; they sang like their pricks were cut off; might as well make it god’s truth.”
Laws makes many references to The Wizard of Oz. One of the monsters that David encounters in a dream transforms “into something vaguely resembling one of the wicked witch’s flying monkeys.” The giant in one of David’s dreams tells him, “You have no power here.” This sentence is spoken several times in the novel. In another dream, David hears someone say, “Who shall it be, my pretties?” And this sentence, “The water made his once-handsome features tallow soft and malleable, like someone simultaneously melting and drowning,” made me think of the Witch when Dorothy throws the bucket of water on her. If only David could have thrown water on Victor and eliminated him! At times, Victor with his mysterious voice coming out of nowhere reminded me of the Wizard.
Jay B. Laws wrote Steam in the middle of the AIDS epidemic. Steam helps us remember not only the horrors but the courage displayed during that time. Laws was lost to AIDS in 1992 at the age of 34.
Grateful thanks to ReQueered Tales for republishing Steam.
March 4, 2020
I've really got to stop reading any horror that doesn't invoke Lovecraft Howard Phillips. H. P. and his followers do it differently than, say, Steven King and his ilk. Even so, I'll stand by my deducting 2 stars here before adding 1.
1 star off for being interminable, to the point that I not only could and did repeatedly put it down but eventually skipped thru the last several chapters to see who Laws was going to bump off* and how the final confrontation was going to go. Another 1 off for that confrontation being just about adequate with an overly delayed climax. But 1 back on for convincingly and explicitly entwining terror and lust.
That last was surely made the easier given this was published in 1991, a few years before the multi-drug "cocktail" treatment commuted AIDS from a death sentence into a life sentence.
And before I leave, I have to acknowledge George Barr's gloriously embarrassing cover art.
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* That I didn't approve of his choices I'm attributing to my dislike for the whole genre of modern horror, so absolving him of individual sin.
1 star off for being interminable, to the point that I not only could and did repeatedly put it down but eventually skipped thru the last several chapters to see who Laws was going to bump off* and how the final confrontation was going to go. Another 1 off for that confrontation being just about adequate with an overly delayed climax. But 1 back on for convincingly and explicitly entwining terror and lust.
That last was surely made the easier given this was published in 1991, a few years before the multi-drug "cocktail" treatment commuted AIDS from a death sentence into a life sentence.
And before I leave, I have to acknowledge George Barr's gloriously embarrassing cover art.
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* That I didn't approve of his choices I'm attributing to my dislike for the whole genre of modern horror, so absolving him of individual sin.
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