The Living One

by Lewis Gannett

This Lambda nominated thriller offers the story of a boy, caught in an unimaginably chilling nightmare--a world of magic, body theivery, killer dogs, ESP wars, and lusty, genre-defying sex--where he discovers the horrors--literally--of his ancestry and himself.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Gay Fiction, LGBT, Vampires, Gay

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Tal Goretsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book over ten years ago when I was a wee gay, and it was stunning. A very unique blend of horror and soap opera - not scary at all but very sexy. It's about a gay high school swimmer who moves into his father's mansion - not having seen his father in years. Dad is enmeshed in some mysterious evil that becomes apparent in the course of the book, and the hot swimmer is part of Dad's devious plan. Meanwhile, Swimmer has to deal with all the things that happen when you switch high schools, including making new friends with lesbians, and falling in love with a team-mate.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this novel back in 1992, read it and loved it and then lost my copy forgot the title and the author's name and spent years fruitlessly trying to track it down, even Goodreads Librarians drew a blank. Which wasn't surprising because although parts of the novel were fresh in my memory all attempts at plot summary were nothing more than a confused list of the following:

A novel about, body stealing, father's stealing their sons bodies, a sort of metaphorical vampire tale, crazy evil roses, dogs with red eyes, a family curse, the crusades, Baybar, Krak des Chevaliers, a gay teenage son alone with his creepy father in robber barons castle in Maine, a teenage gay boy who seems to spend a lot of time in no more than speedos or less being secretly filmed by his father...

It was grand guignol on an immense scale, tremendous fun but having recently acquired and reread the novel I still couldn't give you a more coherent synopsis than my fragmentary one above. It is a novel which, although I enjoyed it, also has the fault of many first novels of attempting to say too much. I'd completely forgotten the various sub plots involving teachers who weren't teachers, psychic investigators in the pay of a secret US government body and a whole homophobic family values subplot (although to be fair it was originally published in 1992 and in 2024 way to many Americans still seem obsessed with 'family values' and are happy being homophobic). There are also some glaringly obvious failures in plotting and the logistics of the story, particularly the curse. I remember this from my first reading and it was even more obvious now and I can't help thinking that the pyrotechnic ending was there to hide the very obvious plot idiocies and inconsistencies.

The pity is that at the heart there was a very good idea for a weird/supernatural novel which, with some good, if ruthless editing, could have made a really satisfying read. The really interesting story revolves around Torrance Spoor (the kid who barely manages to keep his speedos on), his weird father Malcolm filming him secretly and the family retainer Pip who is loyal to the father and the son. There was plenty there with the weird roses, red eyed dogs, and body thieving theme to have made a really first rate novel. Unfortunately the story acquired all sorts of subplots, like a second rate disaster movie with its cliched backstories and over the top climactic scenes.

I can't award the novel less than four stars - some of it is great and rereading hasn't banished those bits I loved and remembered from over thirty years ago. But this is a nostalgic rating.

One final point - I read this novel originally in the Random House edition which has a very minimalist and starkly disturbing cover image. The edition I've reread and own is the UK Gay Men's Press edition. I have an unlimited admiration for GMP but they produced some of the most awful cover art I ever seen. One would be tempted to say that this was a contributing factor to the failure of GMP. The UK edition has a bizarre Midnight in the Garden of Evil crossed with An Interview with Vampire aesthetic along with a photo of an aging camp piano performer at its centre. None of it reflects the novel and one wonders why they didn't use the original artwork but back then often foreign editions had to have different cover art. Just don't let it put you off the novel.

[Paul Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a massive number of years since I read this book the last time, but it is one which despite a very muddled ending, has always remained in my mind. The younger Spoor--standing on the cusp of manhood--contrasted with the image of his his father Malcolm Spoor who is falling into madness is a really interesting dynamic and a rather fresh way at looking at vampirism.

This is an epistolary novel, done as homage to Stoker's Dracula, and for the most part it works, switching from the perspective of the younger Spoor to his teacher. Gannet manages the multiple POVs well and even delves into issues of coming out, growing up, strained familial relationships and less than honest and forthright teachers.

The characters are all very well rounded and the author manages to maintain a creepy almost voyeuristic tone to the novel that fits it well. Not so many scares in this one, but it is a really interesting character study and though it is not a YA novel in any respect, I think for young people it deals pretty honestly with the issues of growing up awkward, being a bit of an outcast, and having parents you just can't understand.

Only near the end does it get muddled, but for me, the story was enough for me to forgive the sloppiness at the end.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Torrance Spoor is a handsome teenager living in California on the cusp of adulthood when he receives an unsettling letter from his estranged father who is returning to the USA after years absent. Soon, Torrance has left his mother to live with his obscenely rich and very strange father on the other side of the country where his life becomes increasingly controlled. There are rooms in his father’s vast estate that are always locked and the only time Torrance can leave is when he’s accompanied by his father’s servant, Pip, while strange hounds with red eyes guard the estate and keep trespassers from entering. Torrance’s one escape and refuge is school, where he takes a creative writing class taught by Sheila Massif who is not all she seems but might be his saviour…

The Living One is a queer gothic-horror novel published in 1992 and it makes for a compelling read – I found it very hard to tear myself away and I zoomed through the 400 pages in no time. There’s much to like about this.

The structure of the book is quite fun – it’s reminiscent of Bram Stroker’s Dracula in being a collection of letters, diary entries, transcriptions of audio and video recordings, and notes from the editors. The voices are distinct and show off Lewis Gannett’s range as an author, from the antique and mad voice of Malcolm Spoor and the teenage ramblings of Torrance. Torrance’s sections made me feel very nostalgic – if this had been published today, I’d say Gannett nailed the 1990s American teenage boy voice I remember from the books I read as a kid and teenager, but of course this was published in the 1990s. The structure also creates tension, allowing the reader to know things the protagonists don’t and right up until the end, Gannett doesn’t let us know who the editors are to know whether they’re entwined in the story or people who came along after the fact who are piecing together what happened. Finally, it also allows the reader to “believe” that this really happened.

The premise of the novel is quite fun, too. I’ve seen it described as a new take on vampirism but it’s more of a thematic or metaphorical vampirism. Instead, it’s a story of control, consumption and the pursuit of youth. It’s less blood-drinking and more body-snatching. Gannett’s use of gothic tropes and elements is also very interesting from a genre perspective. The then-contemporary setting of 1990s America allows for the melding of then-modern technology with the edifice of a gothic house. Additionally, the queer and gothic elements of the plot merge in very interesting ways, creating a gender-bending gothic novel where Torrance is in the role of the gothic heroine, trapped within his father’s stately home, and Sheila ultimately cast as his saviour.

The characters are fairly well-developed and enjoyable to read about. If Malcolm is a horror (and he is), his sections are great examples of a compelling villain’s voice, while the rest are, on the whole, likeable. I can’t say I fell in love with any of the characters but they were fun to spend time with. The atmosphere is also very well done – there’s an intense voyeuristic and claustrophobic feeling to the book, leading up to a baroque conclusion.

The book does feel wonderfully 90s but there are some times where that becomes a detriment, mostly related to the way society has progressed. The “r-word”, now seen as an ableist slur, is used casually as an pejorative by Sheila, one time against one of her students, which was very jarring to read. Of course she’s not actually a teacher but she’s meant to be a sympathetic figure and this makes it all the more jarring.

There are also elements of the plot that would appear deeply objectionable today, the most obvious of these being the relationship between Torrance and Sheila. Although this relationship is largely platonic, with Sheila explicitly having some maternal feelings with Torrance, it does verge into the sexual. There are some indication that they are both under the influence of an outside force but this isn’t really dwelled upon at all, let alone enough to alleviate the fact that Sheila is significantly older than Torrance, who is also her student. There’s also the fact that Torrance is explicitly gay – not bisexual, gay. A mess all round. It’s a plot point necessary for the novel’s conclusion to work and I can understand the adage of “it’s a product of its time” but it just feels like something out of the Yikes Factory. I’m pretty sure it’d be impossible to take it out of the Yikes Factory but I think if the novel had treated it as something more along the lines of the gothic’s fascination with taboo or deeply screwed up dynamics, even if it had dwelt longer on the sense of outside forces pushing Sheila and Torrance into this, it’d have worked a lot better and felt less… like the book just thinks this is all fine and dandy.

Onto the more structural-related flaws and, well, it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that Gannett is throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks. There’s a lot going on – not only do we have the Malcolm-Torrance plotline, we also have the mystery of who and what Pip is, Torrance’s coming out, growing up and love life, Sheila’s relationship with Duane, Duane’s scientific study of psi, strained familial relationships and more. I thought that perhaps a simpler story would have been stronger, jettisoning some of these elements to really narrow the focus and make it all the more powerful. The inventiveness of the structure sometimes compounded this issue, where things that were seemingly occurring around the edges of the story were suddenly dragged centre-stage. For instance, Sheila’s first section introduces us in vivid detail to three students in her writing class, only one of whom – Torrance – continues to have a major role, while Erik appears off-page for most of the novel before becoming a major player in the conclusion.

All these elements run into each other for the climax and it is a little confusing to keep track of what’s happening, who everyone is and what happened to them. The editors’ “afterwords” act as a way of tying things together but it seems a thread was dropped here and there (despite being such an present part in the plot, the school stuff is never mentioned again).

The other problems I had with the book were more of personal taste. I have very little interest in “scientific” explanations for the supernatural so Duane’s sections dealing with psi and so on were a little tedious to me. The conclusion(s) also seemed to me a bit too happily ever after and conveniently tying things together. Finally, while I had a lot of fun with this book and didn’t expect it to feel quite so nostalgic, I’d expected something a bit more… heightened, I guess, and this was a bit more pulpy than I anticipated. Like, I love it for what it is but there’s a part of me that wishes the book I thought it existed. Not instead of The Living One, but as well as.

The Living One is an exciting and intriguing work but far from perfect. It’s a lot of fun and great for a 90s nostalgia trip but does carry some less savoury 90s attitudes and language. If you can look past the flaws, it’s a lot of fun. 3 stars.

[Damian Serbu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update from my original post: I reread this one. I did so with a bit of trepidation, because I had so enjoyed it the first time and wondered if it would stand the test of time. And, well, it did and didn't. I still had a fun time reading it, and the memory of how I loved a horror kind of story with a gay character still resonated with me. Because at that time, in the early 90s, such things were few and far between. But for my 2020 eyes, it was not as exciting and wonderful, just very good. I am glad I ventured back to experience it again!

I read this when I was first coming out, and LOVED it! It's been a long time since I read it, but the horror/suspense is excellent. It's a great gay horror-ish novel, from a time when not much gay horror was being published.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

For some reason I was thinking about this book today, and I was remembering reading it on the beach in Provincetown in the early 90s. I loved it so much! I am scared to re-read it. What I remember is florid gay prose like a Pierre et Gilles photo, or Fassbinder for young adults.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if it was intentional due to the reincarnation aspect of the novel, but it did seem to repeat itself after a while. On the other hand, it was intriguing enough for me to plough on and certainly original.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's very rare that I will read a book more than once. There are just so many new books I want to get to that I kind of feel that re-reading a book takes away from an opportunity to discover a new author or experience a new adventure/story. I already know what's going to happen, so the excitement of discovery is gone. I decided, though, to make an exception because I wanted to see something about this book that I encountered for the first time more than twenty years ago. When I first read this book in my early twenties, I loved it. It was incredibly thrilling, sexy, and freaky. I wanted to see if this book that I had loved so much still had the same power and meant the same to me as a man in my early forties.

Well, I can truly say that 20+ years later, I still love this book. In the years since I had last read it, I forgot many details such as how it had been written, so it was like I was reading it for the first time. The mystery, the creepiness, the young gay protagonist, the older father, the characters, all of it once again enthralled and grabbed me. I often found myself flipping pages, reading faster and faster just to get to the next episode. The format of the story is wonderful. It's told in a series of diaries, journals, audio recordings, and letters, all written by the various main characters. The story, itself, which I won't reveal too much about, involves a father reconnecting with his teenage son and the supernatural happenings surrounding this little reunion.

I read this book much differently now than I did those many years ago. I approached it differently, saw things in a new light, and respected much more what the author accomplished with this novel. I am so glad I undertook this little experiment, and I think I will be re-reading some other books that I haven't touched in 20+ years.

[Djrmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book may be a bit (okay, a lot) over written, it's got so much going for it on the original plot side of the scale I couldn't not like it. A young man is summoned to live with his estranged father in order to begin the process of inheriting a title, several large houses, a great deal of money, and a property so valuable no one can actually put a value on it. Oh, but what a process it is! The "gothic" in the title is no misrepresentation - this book would have made Dan Curtis take notes. It's also got as much soap opera as the entire run of Dark Shadows, so if people turning up at just the right time to see the wrong thing, or not seeing the obvious danger when it's more convenient for the plot for them to miss it drives you crazy, you'll want to avoid this book. But, if patricide, suicide, demon dogs, clueless educators, and young gay teen angst sound like an interesting mix, give the book a try. You won't find anything quite like it any where else.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like other readers, I revisited this book after several years, and enjoyed its daring and gothic adventure. Teenager Torrance is asked to visit his estranged - and strange- father, Malcolm, in a massive spooky mansion on the Eastern coast. His mother is suspicious, for a good reason. His dad's a freak! An odd family 'curse' is mentioned, and along with Torrance's eccentric writing teacher and her sort-of boyfriend, plus Malcolm's stalwart assistant, they fall into an odd series of curious involvements in psychic powers, red-eyed hounds, and beds of roses that have the power to regenerate centuries of paternal lineage through a creepy ritual. Told in a series of journals and recordings, the POV shifts between characters, and characters who possess others. The tumultuous finale is a bit confusing, but I admired the creative aspects of the tale.

[Daniel Severin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review to come shortly. To say this is the movie Scanners meets Mexican Gothic with a queer teenage protagonist doesn't come close to doing this incredible story justice, and yet. That's the simplest summary I can think of, though totally incorrect because this incredible book is from 1993, two decades before MG. Yet the inbreeding/family grooming of MG is essentially this story with different gothic trappings.

[Tom Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was quite a trip. It got to be too many roses and too many massive red eyed dogs. This is far from my usual genre. I guess this can be considered gothic horror. I would have liked to have seen more time spent in Sheila's classroom.

[Justin Fraxi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dude, this book is bonkers.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

I might be too kind to this book because it was one of the first pieces of gay fiction I ever read, as a teenager myself. Not sure I would be as kind to the tropes and silly plot twists these days were it not for the nostalgia. But it was just what I needed at the time, and despite some odd turns -- knocking up the teacher, for one -- it was a fun story about mystery and first love and light horror and all the general confusion and missteps of being a teenager.

I love that this book showed someone like me (read: a closeted gay teen) in a setting that was not just about being like me. The only other gay novel I had read at the time was Reflections of a Rock Lobster, which was nice, but it was a gay character in a gay story. The Living One had a protagonist who just happened to be gay in a story that had very little to do with that aspect of his personality. It was just what kid me needed at that time in his life, so the grumpy grown-up me still holds it in high regard.

[Andy]

DNF 40% in. Not what I was expecting. Too modern. Life is too short to force yourself to finish books you don’t want to continue reading.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

[Karmen]

The book tells of the reunion of Torrance, a 16-year old male from La Jolla, Calif., with his father Malcolm. Torrance is seduced to mass by his father's story of an ancient curse that drives its males to suicide before they reach 50 and that he wants to legally secure him as his sole heir. The reality is that Malcolm is using sepia roses, a repository of extraordinary psi powers, and the dogs exchanges his body for Torrance's. However, Torrance becomes aware that a simple reunion is not what Malcolm has in mind. However, even helped by his creative writing teacher, Sheila, who has psi talent, and Duane, who worked for a gov't project to pinpoint psi talents, Malcolm succeeds in making the change. However, it's temporary. Torrance is released and Sheila, Duane and Erik (T's boyfriend) retire to an island after Malcolm is killed. However, Sheila's fetus is taken over by Malcolm, Duane and Sheila are married. Pip mutated back to a dog - Kip.

[Kristina Coop-a-Loop · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book a long time ago and decided to find it and read it again to see if it was as weird as I remembered. It was. It was also bizarre to the point of being ridiculous and silly. It's an interesting idea, but the author carried it to excess and made it silly. Wouldn't read again. I do recommend it though if you want to read something bizarre and silly.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Abandoned this one. Read it closely until about 1/3 of the way in, then began skimming, but never bothered reading the end.

The author doesn't do a convincing job of writing the female characters, and frankly, everyone seems stilted and only partly developed.

The plot and concept were okay; it just didn't hold my attention.

[Kirsten · Rating 2 out of 5]

you must have a lot of fantasy to read this, but if you have you may like it. it is about PSI and a family story that lasts over seven centuries.

[Bob Olsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly, spooky gothic horror. Dated but entertaining

[Wendy]

(found read date in diary)