Dangers of Unchallenged Homophobia | What Big Teeth by Rose Szabo

Title: What Big Teeth
Author: Rose Szabo
Published: February 2, 2021
Genre(s): Horror
Page Count: 394
Rating:

Summary from Goodreads:

Eleanor Zarrin has been estranged from her wild family for years. When she flees boarding school after a horrifying incident, she goes to the only place she thinks is safe: the home she left behind. But when she gets there, she struggles to fit in with her monstrous relatives, who prowl the woods around the family estate and read fortunes in the guts of birds.

Eleanor finds herself desperately trying to hold the family together—in order to save them all, Eleanor must learn to embrace her family of monsters and tame the darkness inside her.

On one hand, What Big Teeth is an astonishingly good horror novel about intergenerational trauma and family secrets. On the other hand, it’s blatantly homophobic. So although I absolutely loved this book…I feel bad about doing so.

First, what I liked. Rose Szabo’s debut novel is a beautifully written paranormal/horror tale that feels like a YA answer to last year’s Mexican Gothic, and it would be a good readalike for those who enjoy Rory Power. (See, Burn Our Bodies Down, a creepy story about family secrets set among cursed Nebraska cornfields.) The Zarrin family is eerie and weird, and the narrative isn’t too focused on explaining the hows or the whys of their situation. It seems clear that this was inspired, at least partially, by The Addams Family, but the author takes it to a much, much darker place.

I could go on about the atmospheric prose, the clever plot twists, the intricate and perfectly-timed perspective shifts. But I don’t want to bury the lede or spend too much time on things that are ultimately unimportant. I enjoyed What Big Teeth a whole bunch, but at the end of the day, Szabo made a very big miscalculation in their portrayal of male members of the Zarrin family. Protagonist Eleanor’s first cousin, her father, and her grandfather are all gay. This is treated (more or less) as a family curse, and the narrative never resolves the issue of these characters’ sexuality in an affirming or empowering manner. 

There is a critical difference between a book portraying bigotry as part of its thematic schema and a book condoning bigotry, either by implicitly reinforcing prejudiced views or by failing to confront the wrong-headed thinking espoused by the characters. Rose Szabo has not grasped this difference. I truly, truly believe that their intentions were good, but this ain’t it, chief. It’s perfectly okay to write about heavy topics in fiction—more than okay, I believe that it is necessary. But with great power comes great responsibility, as they say.

I mean, for one thing, can we talk about the absolute absurdity of having a family full of werewolves and half-coral-polyp ladies and soul-devouring eldritch creatures, but gay men are an abomination, a threat to the family’s reputation and perhaps its very existence? Like…really??? We’ve heard of how the supernatural is used in fiction as a metaphor for queer people (or people of color), but this is something else. The way Szabo had queer people and paranormal monsters appearing side-by-side on the page and then chose to clearly delineate which of those two identities is problematic was clumsy and poorly thought-out. It’s 2021. We are all tired of the hypocrisy displayed by readers who are fine when a romance heroine is fucked in the ass by a tentacled demon, but heaven forbid she kiss another woman. Intentionally or not, What Big Teeth sets up a similar dynamic:

Protagonist Eleanor’s cousin Rhys is a bloodthirsty werewolf who likes to play with his food? Sure, no problem. Cousin Rhys has a crush on a (male) family friend? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

So, yeah, hooray. At the end of the book, Eleanor saves her family from the dark creature(s) trying to destroy them. She’s victorious. Meanwhile, her gay grandfather is left an ancient, purposeless husk of his former self; her gay father is killed by the villain; and her gay cousin is in a magical coma. There is no justice for the queer characters, no acknowledgment of the wrongs done to them, nothing but death and/or misery. Actually, strike that—there is justice for one of the queer characters. Eleanor falls in love with her grandfather’s former lover, who her grandmother killed, resurrected, then magically enslaved. Him she frees. (You can probably guess my thoughts on that.)

What Big Teeth is a book full of rampant, unchecked homophobia. It does not seem to serve a purpose, except as a justification by which certain female characters become vengeful and/or abusive. (Eleanor’s grandmother seduces and then magically enslaves her husband’s lover.) At no point does Szabo indicate either (a) it’s fine to be gay or (b) it’s not fine to manipulate/use others when your romantic overtures are turned down due to incompatible sexuality. Instead, this book’s overriding message appears to be: no matter what, always support your abusive family. At its core, this is a story about how even though Eleanor was abandoned by her family, she risks her life and saves them anyways, even though they’re afraid of her, even though they try to kill her.

And if that isn’t a violently anti-queer theme, I don’t know what is.

It doesn’t matter how gorgeous the writing or how unique the concept. At the end of the day, Rose Szabo purposefully introduced bigotry into their book. In doing so, they had a duty and a responsibility to address the issue in a meaningful way. That didn’t happen. And because it didn’t happen, I don’t think that What Big Teeth is really the sort of book I’d be giving to my (hypothetical) teenager.