Swoony Sunday Book Review: "Disco Witches of Fire Island"
Blair Fell's new novel is a richly-told and evocative portrait of 1980s gay life, with healthy doses of sex, romance, and comedy.
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Warning: Full spoilers for the book follow.
Disco Witches of Fire Island was one of those books that’s been on my TBR pile ever since I got an ARC from NetGalley. There was just something about the plot that drew me in and, while it is undoubtedly a strange little mixture of a novel, I will say that I was totally enchanted by it. It sweeps you up in the heady world of Fire Island Pines in the 1980s, when AIDS is still a deathly scourge and when gay men, old and young alike, are trying to find their way in the world where death seems to hang in the air.
When it begins, Joe is an Armenian-American in his late 20s who is still trying to find himself and to recover from the death of his boyfriend, Elliot, from AIDS. He’s befriended by muscle-head Ronnie, who adopts him and essentially strong-arms him into going to Fire Island for the summer, where they will presumably meet rich men and be set for life. Once Joe and Ronnie arrive on Fire Island, however, things take a few twists and turns. Joe falls in love with a young, web-footed ferryman named Fergal (yes, you read that right), while Ronnie finds his dreams of landing a hot daddy continually undercut, no least by his own silliness and his running away from his destiny. Meanwhile, a group of disco witches, led by Lenny and Howie–Joe’s roommates–contend with the specter of evil that aims to claim Joe.
As this summary makes clear, the novel is a rather odd mix of different genres, all of which exist in a strange sort of truce. There’s obviously the historical component of it and, while I hate the thought of a novel set in the decade in which I was born being referred to as “historical fiction,” I have to admit that there’s something to that. The world that it depicts is one that’s very far indeed from our own, even if we’re all living in the shadow of the Reagan era in one way or another.This is a world in which AIDS continues to take the lives of many of the loved ones of the characters, and the sense of grief and despair is palpable.
There’s a moment late in the novel that is particularly affecting. Joe and Fergal, having finally gotten to the point where they both want to have sex, are just about ready to do the deed when the latter, with a shuddering sigh, says the words that Joe’s been dreading: he has HIV. It’s a devastating moment for both the characters and the reader, especially since we’ve been privileged to see how much Joe remains haunted not just by Elliot’s death but also by the fact that his own actions had driven his beloved away. It’s for this reason that he ends up pushing Fergal away, a decision that it takes him some time to regret and to correct. The novel, however, makes it clear that though this is of course a very thoughtless and cruel thing for Joe to do, it’s also an understandable action, given his own past and the world in which he lives.
Indeed, I loved the extent to which Disco Witches of Fire Island isn’t afraid to explore some very fraught emotional territory. The ‘80s, after all, was a decade of tremendous affluence and also of dreadful poverty, and there were many gay men who were quite content to throw their fellows under the bus so long as it meant that they were able to hold onto their privilege. There are more than a few characters like this in the novel, especially the rapacious landlord who does everything he can to close down the bar at which Joe works. Even worse is the cad that Ronnie takes up with in a vain effort to land himself a sugar-daddy, and the man ends up being both cruel and ruthlessly classist.
Then there’s the fantasy element of it. Both Lenny and Howie are witches, and though Joe finds them quite bewildering and even a bit terrifying at times, I found them absolutely charming. In addition to being practitioners of a very potent form of magic, they’re also like fairy godmothers for the fledgling Joe, desperate to protect him from the evil forces that have taken so many of them. Some, I’m sure, will be turned off by this veering into the fantastic, but I personally found it quite enchanting. It’s not quite fantasy, per se; instead, I’d put it in the tradition of magical realism. It adds a certain little extra something to the book, and I loved it.
In the end, of course, it all ends up happily. Joe and Fergal have very passionate sex which, given Joe’s various hang-ups, is a truly revolutionary act. You know that I love me a good gay sex scene, particularly one that has narrative importance, and in that respect Fell more than delivers. It’s also just really hot, and that makes it all even more delicious.
In addition to all of this, Joe is saved from the darkness that threatened to consume his soul, and he even gets to ride off into the sunset with Fergal, the two of them bound for a new life in Hawai’i. Ronnie has managed to find his own sort of happiness, having accepted that he, too, is a disco witch and found love with a blunt-spoken Irish bartender. It’s all very delightful and, dare I say it, more than a little touching.
Disco Witches of Fire Island is a deliciously strange little queer novel that stole my heart. As we all know, I’m a sucker for a gay story that makes me feel all the things, and in that regard it more than succeeded. I’m so happy that Joe and Fergal get to find happiness together and, though they have to reckon with the fact that the future is always uncertain, they at least have the comfort that they can do it together. And, as Howie presciently says, a day is soon coming when AIDS will no longer be a death sentence.
If you haven’t yet, I highly suggest that you go out, buy, and read Disco Witches of Fire Island. It’s a great summer read, and while it’ll make you cry, it’ll also make you laugh. It’s a delight, and don’t we all need a bit more queer joy in our lives?