Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White

Publication date: June 2022
LGBTQ+ author? Queer and trans
Setting: Post-apocalyptic small town Pennsylvania

This book is a gay, trans, autistic version of The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Last of Us. It’s Andrew Joseph white’s debut novel and just as stunning as his more recent two.

Like all of the author’s books, this story is gory, violent and deals with hard themes like religious trauma and transphobia. (And it’s a young adult book!)

Summary

Benji is a trans 16-year-old boy and the book begins with him running away from the religious cult he was raised in called the Angels. Previously the Angels used a virus to kill nonbelievers, resulting in almost everyone in the world being dead.

Benji is taken in by a group of queer kids from the local LGBTQ centre who have banded together to survive. What the group doesn’t know is that Benji has been infected with a version of the virus that is slowly turning him into a monstrous biological weapon that the Angels plan to use in their favour.

Zombies zombies zombies

I didn’t love this story at first because it reminded me so much of other post-apocalyptic stories, specifically the Last of Us video game. Infected people turn into these grotesque monster/zombies. In Last of Us, it’s via a fungus and in this book its via a virus.

What turned this book around for me is that we follow Benji has he slowly turns into the most powerful of all the monsters, a winged creature called Seraph. Seraph can control all the other monster/zombies,

What does it feel like to have flesh melt off of you? To puke up your internal organs? To be in love with someone and want to kiss them even though your new spiky teeth are poking out of your ripping cheeks? When exactly does your humanity leave you?

Be Gay Do Crime?

This story is ultimately about overcoming the circumstances that have oppressed you, as Benji goes back to fight the Angels in his new powerful form as Seraph. But I didn’t totally understand the metaphor. Are trans people powerful monsters after we transition? Maybe? Maybe in the Be Gay Do Crime sort of way that is like fuck the system. (But maybe I am overthinking it?)

Transphobia and trans affirmation

Benji faces horrible transphobia and rejection from his religious cult including his mother, but there are huge pockets of people who see him for who he really is.

For example, Benji is engaged to a soldier in the Angels, who turns out to be a real asshole. But he always sees Benji as a boy, even though he has not had the option to socially or medically transition in the religious cult they were raised in. This is classic Andrew Joseph White and I love it.

His characters are certain they are boys despite their restrictive upbringings, and then people around them just accept what they say no questions asked.