Review: The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle by Steve Hugh Westenra

Title: The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle

Author: Steve Hugh Westenra

Length: 450 Pages

Category: Horror, Mystery

Rating: 3.5 Stars

At a Glance: Despite some issues, I liked this book. The claustrophobia of the island lent itself perfectly to the feelings Steve Hugh Westenra wanted his readers to feel; that is, isolated and trapped.

Reviewed By: Lisa

Blurb: Tyler Kyle doesn’t believe in monsters.

A washed-up thirty-year-old actor and reluctant cryptid investigator, Tyler is used to playing the Scully to his best friend Josh’s Mulder on their stupidly popular YouTube channel. But when Tyler receives previously unseen footage of the B movie bombshell mother who abandoned him eighteen years ago—footage linked to an isolated island in the Canadian wilderness—the mystery is one conspiracy he’s determined to investigate. The fact that following the scent gives Tyler an excuse to run away from the “straight” Josh, whom he drunkenly made out with, is just the cherry on the shit sundae.

But Echo Island isn’t what it seems. Somewhere amongst its pine-clad hills lurks the stalker whose footage lured him to the island in the first place, and behind its eerily scenic veneer hides a twisted secret buried in its roots as a gay conversion camp. As Tyler retraces his mother’s footsteps, he discovers a supernatural connection the residents share with the island—one that calls to Tyler the same way it did his mother.

Face-to-face with the supernatural, he sure-as-shit wishes he hadn’t gay-panicked and left the cryptid-obsessed Josh behind. Pursued by the stalker, searching for his mother, and debating whether it’s possible to queerbait yourself, Tyler comes to realize that it doesn’t matter so much whether you believe in monsters, if they believe in you.

Review: There’s a saying that goes “Don’t poke the bear.” That’s the premise of Tyler and Josh’s YouTube channel. They’re investigators of the strange and unusual, a la ghosts, cryptids, and mysteries of unusual origin, and they go poking around trying to prove they’re real. At least Josh does. If you’ve ever seen the show Buzzfeed Unsolved or enjoyed the satirical comedic stylings of Truth Seekers, you’ll know the basics about their vlog—Josh is the believer while Tyler is the skeptic, and they banter their way through their vodcasts. Which is giving some mixed signals and is the crux of the relationship that isn’t between them—just lots of unresolved sexual tension. Tyler very much wants Josh in ways he’s positive Josh doesn’t want him.

And it only takes grave bodily danger to unravel their story.

The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle confronts conversion therapy, so be forewarned that the things Tyler unveils in his investigation into his mother’s disappearance eighteen years ago are ugly. The story takes on a poignant, if not weird, tone on the strange island town where the mystery begins and ends, holding no few surprises and no few interesting characters. When Tyler becomes of prisoner of the town’s leader as well as victim of its resident psychopath (cautions here for sexual coercion and emotional manipulation), his journey reveals some unusual secrets about what the people on Echo Island are.

As the story unfolds by fits and starts, there were times I wasn’t sure if the book was trying to be a mystery, a horror story, or a romance. Billing itself as a comedy is most certainly in the eye of the beholder. In the end, it’s more mystery and horror than anything else. All Tyler and Josh needed was the threat of never being together again—and Josh overcoming a heaping helping of internalized homophobia, along with the Big Misunderstanding trope—to finally admit their feelings for each other.

Despite some issues, I liked this book. It is light on the world-building, handing all the strange and unusual off to scientific experiments during the Cold War, but there’s some weird and creepy stuff going on amongst the horror, and some characters who endeared themselves to me (thank you, Gene) in unexpected ways. The salute to some icons, a la Poppy Z. Brite and Elle Woods and Alice and her looking glass, were great. And the claustrophobia of the island lent itself perfectly to the feelings Steve Hugh Westenra wanted his readers to feel; that is, isolated and trapped.