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Castle Faggot
Castle Faggot is Derek McCormack's darkest and most delicious book yet, a satire of sugary cereals and Saturday morning cartoons set in an amusement park more deranged than anything Disney dreamed up. At the heart of the park is Faggotland, a playland for gay men, and Castle Faggot, the darkest dark ride in the world. Home to a cartoon Dracula called Count Choc-o-log, the castle is decorated with the corpses of gays—some were killed, some killed themselves, all ended up as décor.
98 pages, Paperback
First published November 24, 2020
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2105 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
December 2, 2022
Is this book about rainbow washing and its ridiculous contrast with the morbid extent of gay men’s virility? Is this book a satire on consumerism, utilizing transgression as a Marxist metaphor? Is this book about the nonrealm beyond the point of transgression, where bodies spasm in torpid, incomplete speech and the most horrid, vile, disgusting things hang as adornments to remind us, in a pleasurable and aestheticized way, of the festering wound left behind when we severed ourselves from the comfort of God?
No, it’s just about gay people eating booty.
No, it’s just about gay people eating booty.
January 12, 2022
i cannot imagine having a middle of the road opinion about this book. you will either hate it or spend a lot of money buying copies for all your friends. best kept in the bathroom, near or even in the toilet.
September 5, 2021
Well curiosity killed the cat. This was a complete waste of my time.
Recommended for people who like shit.
Recommended for people who like shit.
May 3, 2021
Took a while. Usually I finish McCormack in about an afternoon. This might be the perfect novel (I think it’s actually closer to a poem, but, I will shut the fuck up preemptively). Architectural, McCormack’s usual kind of Advent Calendar of yesteryear celeb cameos, and punning so often that the world is composed of slant-ideas entirely—so that when something is ‘untouched’ (here: not caked in shit) it’s the most conspicuous part of the page. McCormack might be Canada’s funniest author. He’s certainly the shittiest.
March 21, 2025
[Review corrected to read better, I hope, in March 2025]
Reading this his novel reminded me of being young, a teenager or an undergraduate, on many a long lazy afternoon following a night of partying during which I consumned masses, in quantity and variety of drink and drugs. During afternoons like these I and my friends would lounge around talking shite as we made up ever more bizarre and weird imaginary stories involving caricatures of famous people and places that we knew nothing about, but were convinced 'we knew', and the most important thing 'we knew' was that everyone, particularly politicians and cellebraties were perverted and debauched on level of 'The Gardens of Earthly Delight' by The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch.
It was incredibly fun because we were young and, our rants included lots of word play and silly names for famous people, mentions and quotes from obscure writers was to show how sophisticated we were. But of course we hadn't read most of the authors we referenced - 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter - was perhaps the most frequently mentioned, least read and most likely to be found in our rooms with strips torn off the covers to make filters for joints.
The problem is that once I, and my friends, properly came down and sobered it was abundantly clear that our flights of fancy were not clever, witty, or sophisticated. They were jejune in the most banal and adolescent way and embarrassing of all, completely without originality.
I am not saying Derek McCormack was in a similar post stoned, post drunk, post debauched state when he conceived and wrote this novel, but it reads like the junk being post coital, post stoned and post drunk produces. Or, to be really honest, what someone who has no experience of being post coital, post stone, post drunk imagines those states to be like.
The main reason this book ithis book is junk, and there are lots of them and plenty GR reviews listing them, is not that it is shocking, or challenging norms, or upsetting, or anything else - it is silly and trite and just not interesting.
I want to be clear, nothing offends me, I don't believe in taboos or subjects that can't be mentioned. This work will not offend you, it will just bore you.
Reading this his novel reminded me of being young, a teenager or an undergraduate, on many a long lazy afternoon following a night of partying during which I consumned masses, in quantity and variety of drink and drugs. During afternoons like these I and my friends would lounge around talking shite as we made up ever more bizarre and weird imaginary stories involving caricatures of famous people and places that we knew nothing about, but were convinced 'we knew', and the most important thing 'we knew' was that everyone, particularly politicians and cellebraties were perverted and debauched on level of 'The Gardens of Earthly Delight' by The Garden of Earthly Delights' by Hieronymus Bosch.
It was incredibly fun because we were young and, our rants included lots of word play and silly names for famous people, mentions and quotes from obscure writers was to show how sophisticated we were. But of course we hadn't read most of the authors we referenced - 'Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter - was perhaps the most frequently mentioned, least read and most likely to be found in our rooms with strips torn off the covers to make filters for joints.
The problem is that once I, and my friends, properly came down and sobered it was abundantly clear that our flights of fancy were not clever, witty, or sophisticated. They were jejune in the most banal and adolescent way and embarrassing of all, completely without originality.
I am not saying Derek McCormack was in a similar post stoned, post drunk, post debauched state when he conceived and wrote this novel, but it reads like the junk being post coital, post stoned and post drunk produces. Or, to be really honest, what someone who has no experience of being post coital, post stone, post drunk imagines those states to be like.
The main reason this book ithis book is junk, and there are lots of them and plenty GR reviews listing them, is not that it is shocking, or challenging norms, or upsetting, or anything else - it is silly and trite and just not interesting.
I want to be clear, nothing offends me, I don't believe in taboos or subjects that can't be mentioned. This work will not offend you, it will just bore you.
December 3, 2020
Full Review
This was a book that was always going to push buttons, and it seems to be doing that already. The title alone will be incredibly off-putting to many, and I won't try to convince those who are. However, while a disturbing piece of work, I believe it's an important one. It's a hilarious and insightful look at the effects of homophobia, trauma, and the way sexual identity has become increasingly commodified in the wake of recent civil rights victories.
This was a book that was always going to push buttons, and it seems to be doing that already. The title alone will be incredibly off-putting to many, and I won't try to convince those who are. However, while a disturbing piece of work, I believe it's an important one. It's a hilarious and insightful look at the effects of homophobia, trauma, and the way sexual identity has become increasingly commodified in the wake of recent civil rights victories.
January 12, 2021
What can I say? Don't read it on a bus.
April 10, 2022
I really don't know what there is I could possibly say about Castle Faggot other than it absolutely astounded me. This novel is a haunted stop motion puppet halloween special directed by a cereal-obsessed coprophagist. It's also wildly beautiful and over the top and I loved it.
Read
March 20, 2024extremely brown book, in both the scatological & the dean ween sense. at a moment when florida et al are trying to argue that even mentioning the existence of LGBT ppl to children is obscene, this seems to be asking: what would a literature that actually does corrupt children look like? life-denying rather than life-affirming; ruinously distortive of body image; full of exhortations to eat more sugar cereal.
January 4, 2022
a decadently morbid little vortex of suicide, shit, and ghastly puns on fin-de-siècle french authors. is it an off-off-off-broadway play? a pessimistic manifesto against sugary cereal and disney world? an elaborate attempt to convince me to jump off of this balcony? from what I can glean: all of the above. 0 stars / 5 stars, same thing.
June 12, 2023
When you read experimental, literary shit, there's a definite fear of looking stupid because you didn't get it.
This is a fear I have confronted on many occasions, so I have no problem telling you that I did not get this book. Like, at all.
I vaguely understood what it was, what it referenced, and the plotline, moment-to-moment action I generally understood. What I didn't understand was what this is about.
I've been really trying to explain how confusing this book was, and I think it's best said like this: If I wrote something like this, I don't know how I would know that it was done.
At what point do you step away and say, "Yes, that's it!"?
Maybe this is like that part of the art museum that some people really dig, where the art is like...there's this thing they had at the Denver Art Museum, it was part of a cultivator with a big skull on it or something. I guess you see it and feel things, but nothing definable, and what you feel and I feel are going to be totally different.
If you really like that part of the art museum, maybe this book is for you.
It's weird, I'm not someone who feels like art has to "do" something or be "for" a purpose or anything like that. It's more that I feel the writer's work is to show people something, and I'm not so sure I saw anything here.
I'm just not sure how to approach this as a reader or a writer, which are the two primary ways I look at books, and that leaves me with very little.
I googled a bit to read reviews other people had done, and I understood what they meant when they said things like "The blank frames in the book force the reader to be complicit" and stuff about the grotesque and everything. And I've felt that way about other books. But this one I think I just found a frustrating experiment, and at times I felt like this was a joke being played on me, like everyone was pretending this was a deep masterpiece and then you open it up and it's all potty humor. But, see, it's on purpose potty humor, it KNOWS it's being scatological (that's the fancy word for potty humor), so it's different.
I guess the biggest feeling I got reading this was that maybe this is a prank, and I fell into it. Maybe this is a huge prank on the literary world, and some folks are laughing their asses off at people grasping for deeper meaning in this text.
Or, maybe that's how this book functions: Intentionally shallow, and therefore the reader has to create the connections for themselves.
Or, maybe this book is about the fact that things don't always have deeper meaning, sometimes things just exist.
And where this ends up is me saying that the book could be interpreted any number of ways, and when a book can be interpreted in an unlimited number of ways, I have to bow out. That's not my scene.
This is a fear I have confronted on many occasions, so I have no problem telling you that I did not get this book. Like, at all.
I vaguely understood what it was, what it referenced, and the plotline, moment-to-moment action I generally understood. What I didn't understand was what this is about.
I've been really trying to explain how confusing this book was, and I think it's best said like this: If I wrote something like this, I don't know how I would know that it was done.
At what point do you step away and say, "Yes, that's it!"?
Maybe this is like that part of the art museum that some people really dig, where the art is like...there's this thing they had at the Denver Art Museum, it was part of a cultivator with a big skull on it or something. I guess you see it and feel things, but nothing definable, and what you feel and I feel are going to be totally different.
If you really like that part of the art museum, maybe this book is for you.
It's weird, I'm not someone who feels like art has to "do" something or be "for" a purpose or anything like that. It's more that I feel the writer's work is to show people something, and I'm not so sure I saw anything here.
I'm just not sure how to approach this as a reader or a writer, which are the two primary ways I look at books, and that leaves me with very little.
I googled a bit to read reviews other people had done, and I understood what they meant when they said things like "The blank frames in the book force the reader to be complicit" and stuff about the grotesque and everything. And I've felt that way about other books. But this one I think I just found a frustrating experiment, and at times I felt like this was a joke being played on me, like everyone was pretending this was a deep masterpiece and then you open it up and it's all potty humor. But, see, it's on purpose potty humor, it KNOWS it's being scatological (that's the fancy word for potty humor), so it's different.
I guess the biggest feeling I got reading this was that maybe this is a prank, and I fell into it. Maybe this is a huge prank on the literary world, and some folks are laughing their asses off at people grasping for deeper meaning in this text.
Or, maybe that's how this book functions: Intentionally shallow, and therefore the reader has to create the connections for themselves.
Or, maybe this book is about the fact that things don't always have deeper meaning, sometimes things just exist.
And where this ends up is me saying that the book could be interpreted any number of ways, and when a book can be interpreted in an unlimited number of ways, I have to bow out. That's not my scene.
March 14, 2022
McCormack presents a perfect excoriation of internalized homophobia, internalized capitalism and the dark intersection between the two. Big Business will take gay money and then pay for our deaths by financing right wing political campaigns, selling us crap we don’t need (or that will kill us), or working us to death. And there is no bigger Big Business than Disney…errr, I mean FaggotLand.
McCormack is challenging…you almost feel dirty, the tea he spills about the queer experience through copious cursing and persistent scatology. But it all comes together, cutting so deeply to the truth that I wind up forgiving myself for feeling dirty and embracing the message: “It’s the part for faggots and monsters — and faggot monsters!” I just wish the execution of said message didn’t feel so repetitive.
McCormack is challenging…you almost feel dirty, the tea he spills about the queer experience through copious cursing and persistent scatology. But it all comes together, cutting so deeply to the truth that I wind up forgiving myself for feeling dirty and embracing the message: “It’s the part for faggots and monsters — and faggot monsters!” I just wish the execution of said message didn’t feel so repetitive.
Read
February 26, 2022Ik lees boeken meestal onderweg naar werk, in de trein. Daar is dit boek niet geschikt voor. Ik denk dat het lezen hiervan vergelijkbaar is met spontane diarree terwijl je op vakantie bent in Disneyland.
May 1, 2021
oooooooooooo I hated this so goddamn much
June 25, 2022
⭐️ ⭐️
Critical Score: B
Personal Score: D-
Reading Experience: 📘/5
Assigning a critical score is kind of pointless here, as this is hefty experimentation and operates brazenly in its own field.
I hated reading this in the same way I usually hate reading obscure lyric poetry. I like messed up writing, and I strive to appreciate things of an Avant-garde nature, but I detest this book. Which is kind of the point. Which is a big reason why I don’t know how to go about rating it.
Stuffed with puns and nonsense, most of which went over my head, this is the apparent product of a raging drug spiral if I ever read one—which is not to assume McCormack wrote this under the influence. I’m just saying it evokes a sense of possession. Which speaks to its power, but it’s a power that did not inspire, move, or impress me. I only feel very, very depressed. Not even disturbed. Just bad.
The thematic impressions here are significant and awesome, but the execution took away any appeal for me.
This is the sort of syllabus piece in an experimental literature class I’d struggle through and then look forward to discussing, but only for a little bit, before it’s dark powers came over me again.
I need to put this away now. Read at your own risk.
Critical Score: B
Personal Score: D-
Reading Experience: 📘/5
Assigning a critical score is kind of pointless here, as this is hefty experimentation and operates brazenly in its own field.
I hated reading this in the same way I usually hate reading obscure lyric poetry. I like messed up writing, and I strive to appreciate things of an Avant-garde nature, but I detest this book. Which is kind of the point. Which is a big reason why I don’t know how to go about rating it.
Stuffed with puns and nonsense, most of which went over my head, this is the apparent product of a raging drug spiral if I ever read one—which is not to assume McCormack wrote this under the influence. I’m just saying it evokes a sense of possession. Which speaks to its power, but it’s a power that did not inspire, move, or impress me. I only feel very, very depressed. Not even disturbed. Just bad.
The thematic impressions here are significant and awesome, but the execution took away any appeal for me.
This is the sort of syllabus piece in an experimental literature class I’d struggle through and then look forward to discussing, but only for a little bit, before it’s dark powers came over me again.
I need to put this away now. Read at your own risk.
Read
October 12, 2021just an extremely bizarre unrateable book. it kinda explodes ideas of "good" and "bad." by the end it just feels like a 98 page prank, but maybe that's the genius of it, if there is any
January 4, 2022
Give this one to your kids along with a bowl of Count Chocula and a pack of Newports.
July 23, 2023
if it’s your thing, it’s your thing. and this happens to be my thing
February 17, 2024
Not sure whether I liked or hated this. Hmmm.
Update: Reread and bumped up two stars.
Update: Reread and bumped up two stars.
August 21, 2023
Humorous, sexual, dark, aggressiv, satirical and of course queer. His short story is a mixture of chaotic play on words and puns as well as intertextual weaving of French literature from the Fin de Siècle. Catchy and very intriguing lecture!
January 19, 2021
Exhilarating and stunning: experimental and fun, before it gets dark. Concentric and mirroring sketches sum up to one of the brightest novellas I've read in a few years
February 1, 2021
“Aren’t all shoes puppets? Aren’t all mirrors?”
like Disneyland for a MONSTROUSLY homosexual Sade
Begins with a brochure for Castle Faggot, the shit-laden haunt of McCormack’s counterpart to Count Chocula, from the breakfast cereal—leads to a two part commercial starring a kid McCormack, a puppet commissioned by Count Choc-o-log to construct a mirror to behold a vampire
Bleeds, seethes camp; recalls and stars decadent fags like Huysmans, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Chanel; unremittingly subject to objectifying
A whole lotta gross dark fun
like Disneyland for a MONSTROUSLY homosexual Sade
Begins with a brochure for Castle Faggot, the shit-laden haunt of McCormack’s counterpart to Count Chocula, from the breakfast cereal—leads to a two part commercial starring a kid McCormack, a puppet commissioned by Count Choc-o-log to construct a mirror to behold a vampire
Bleeds, seethes camp; recalls and stars decadent fags like Huysmans, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Chanel; unremittingly subject to objectifying
A whole lotta gross dark fun
December 19, 2024
5✩
"It's plastic—a plastic castle.
'The Castle Faggot Dollhouse, yours for fifty boxtops
and a money order. For faggots age five and up.'
I peer into it. I see me: a figurine of me in it. The figurine's peering into a doll-sized dollhouse that a figurine of Marshmallarmé has in his hands."
sure what the hell five stars
"It's plastic—a plastic castle.
'The Castle Faggot Dollhouse, yours for fifty boxtops
and a money order. For faggots age five and up.'
I peer into it. I see me: a figurine of me in it. The figurine's peering into a doll-sized dollhouse that a figurine of Marshmallarmé has in his hands."
sure what the hell five stars
February 11, 2024
4.5 ⭐️ rounded up
this was so fucking good. just absolutely ridiculous, in the best possible way.
i absolutely LOVE books that play with formatting, that are experimental, transgressive — and this absolutely fit the bill. the spaces used in the beginning of the book, the use of repetitions (if u read my reviews u know i love that shit), and when i had to turn the book around in a reference to the upside down castle i actually think i swooned a little.
i will 100% be reading more from mccormack in the future. instant favourite.
this was so fucking good. just absolutely ridiculous, in the best possible way.
i absolutely LOVE books that play with formatting, that are experimental, transgressive — and this absolutely fit the bill. the spaces used in the beginning of the book, the use of repetitions (if u read my reviews u know i love that shit), and when i had to turn the book around in a reference to the upside down castle i actually think i swooned a little.
i will 100% be reading more from mccormack in the future. instant favourite.
December 2, 2022
3 / 5
Take a shot every time this book says faggot.
This book was absurd. I enjoyed the whole turn the page upside down and read right to left (page-wise) for some interaction but I think a lot of it was lost of me tbh. It was an easy read though and for that, I give it average marks.
Also enjoyed the random mention of Buffy in the dialogue after the novel ended. Agreed that Xander is the worst.
Take a shot every time this book says faggot.
This book was absurd. I enjoyed the whole turn the page upside down and read right to left (page-wise) for some interaction but I think a lot of it was lost of me tbh. It was an easy read though and for that, I give it average marks.
Also enjoyed the random mention of Buffy in the dialogue after the novel ended. Agreed that Xander is the worst.
June 15, 2024
This book is a reading *experience*, very wild and very vivid [reading it feels like you're at the park]!
October 22, 2021
hard book to rate. seems more like a concept or a poem or a sales pitch than a novel. hardly left an impression.
Read
March 12, 2022I always tend to give books rating, but I’m gonna sit this one out. I cant begin to explain…what exactly I’m thinking. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t bad…It was just.
November 21, 2024
LOL THIS BOOK WAS GENUINELY SO FUN TO READ it’s literally alice in wonderland but for fucked up weird gay adults
June 20, 2025
"All these dead faggots! All these dead fucking faggots! They're crammed into every corner of the castle. There are dead faggots in the tower. They're caked in their own blood. There are dead faggots in the library. They're caked in their own shit. The ballroom? There's a faggot hanging from the chandelier."
Okay. You're either going to adore, or utterly despise Castle Faggot. It's one of those books that either resonates with you or it really doesn't. I can think of no conceivable scenario in which one manages to form a middling opinion of this monstrosity, because, well... It's a lot. Castle Faggot leans extremely heavily into it's satirical nature, it's actually insane, over the top and utterly ridiculous, but, that's sort of the charm of the whole thing. It's actually, kind of a really daring novel (if you could even call this a novel. It's more like, a long form poem about shit and suicide.) There's not all that much that can be said about Castle Faggot, other than it surprised me. Derek McCormack might just be one of the most hilarious authors in the satirical writing sphere. If anything, he's the most haunted.
A book such as this one is always going to push buttons, it's going to ignite strong feelings and spark conversations, it's going to cause discomfort, disgust, even. And, I think that's what elevates this beyond a simple book, that's what makes this a work of art. Never will it be my place to dissuade anyone from their stance, or even to encourage anyone to read something that will make them uncomfortable - because, in truth, Castle Faggot is not an enjoyable reading experience, it's sort of like being sliced open. However, I do believe a book like this one is an important read, because, beyond all the crass jokes about eating shit, there lies a startlingly vivid and deeply insightful look at the long-lasting impacts of homophobia.
In an age where puritanical ideals seem to be on the rise, I believe, a book that dares challenge this seems god-damn essential. There were countless times during this crazy little thing that I had to take a step back, put the book down and ruminate, because so much of this sounds exactly like how some fucked up internet forum would talk about "the queer lifestyle." Like it or not, books like this are the cornerstone of queer literature. This thing is weirdly beautiful despite how often it discusses death and shit-eating. At once both exhilarating and exhausting, this is one angry, seething, bloodthirsty book. Intensely sexual, but not at all erotic. Filthy and foul, transgressive doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what this book actually is.
"Walt Doody's Castle Faggot Dollhouse is the best thing besides being there. It lets you play with a dead faggot. It lets you play as a dead faggot. It lets you be a dead faggot - shove the castle up your ass and rupture your rectum. If you can't die in the castle, die with the castle in you!"
Okay. You're either going to adore, or utterly despise Castle Faggot. It's one of those books that either resonates with you or it really doesn't. I can think of no conceivable scenario in which one manages to form a middling opinion of this monstrosity, because, well... It's a lot. Castle Faggot leans extremely heavily into it's satirical nature, it's actually insane, over the top and utterly ridiculous, but, that's sort of the charm of the whole thing. It's actually, kind of a really daring novel (if you could even call this a novel. It's more like, a long form poem about shit and suicide.) There's not all that much that can be said about Castle Faggot, other than it surprised me. Derek McCormack might just be one of the most hilarious authors in the satirical writing sphere. If anything, he's the most haunted.
A book such as this one is always going to push buttons, it's going to ignite strong feelings and spark conversations, it's going to cause discomfort, disgust, even. And, I think that's what elevates this beyond a simple book, that's what makes this a work of art. Never will it be my place to dissuade anyone from their stance, or even to encourage anyone to read something that will make them uncomfortable - because, in truth, Castle Faggot is not an enjoyable reading experience, it's sort of like being sliced open. However, I do believe a book like this one is an important read, because, beyond all the crass jokes about eating shit, there lies a startlingly vivid and deeply insightful look at the long-lasting impacts of homophobia.
"Why do faggots commit suicide? Why not? All the faggots in the castle died because they wanted to be decor. A faggot hangs himself - he's decor; a faggot slits his wrists - he's decor; a faggot shoots himself in the head - he's decor. What do you call a faggot hanging from a chandelier? Crystal. What do you call a faggot with a hole in his head? Vase."
In an age where puritanical ideals seem to be on the rise, I believe, a book that dares challenge this seems god-damn essential. There were countless times during this crazy little thing that I had to take a step back, put the book down and ruminate, because so much of this sounds exactly like how some fucked up internet forum would talk about "the queer lifestyle." Like it or not, books like this are the cornerstone of queer literature. This thing is weirdly beautiful despite how often it discusses death and shit-eating. At once both exhilarating and exhausting, this is one angry, seething, bloodthirsty book. Intensely sexual, but not at all erotic. Filthy and foul, transgressive doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what this book actually is.
"Walt Doody's Castle Faggot Dollhouse is the best thing besides being there. It lets you play with a dead faggot. It lets you play as a dead faggot. It lets you be a dead faggot - shove the castle up your ass and rupture your rectum. If you can't die in the castle, die with the castle in you!"
Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews