Naomi Gibson’s first adult novel, Man Muse Monster, is a dark academia horror-romance about zeal, obsession, and the irrepressible hunger to create. [1] Harry is the last in the long line of “Great Alexanders,” a(n) (in)famous family with a history of notable artistic achievements. Orphaned young, he finds himself sharing the decaying ancestral mansion with his heavy-drinking, resentful uncle. At twenty-two, he pursues an MA in Fine Art, but struggles to stand out amongst the wealthy students at the Apollo Academy. Insecure, impoverished, and desperate for success worthy of his grand legacy, he stumbles upon an unfinished painting that literally houses a muse passed through the Alexander bloodline: a young, immortal man who refuses to give his name but offers the inspiration that might bring Harry greatness. Lightly inspired by Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), the novel is quite the opposite—fast-paced, commercial, hooky, and explicit in its queerness. It remains largely uninterested in art or philosophical inquiry, but skillfully balances its dark romance with gothic horror that charms more than horrifies. Unfortunately, like its protagonist, it achieves all this only to unravel at the moment of triumph. Perhaps it is only appropriate that Man, Muse, Monster collapses under its ambition and sets itself on fire at the end.
For both the Alexanders and the novel, the failure lies at the very foundation. Horror-romance, pitched by some as the “new” romantasy, and dismissed by others as an abomination conjured in a publisher’s marketing lab, is more challenging and intriguing than other romance hybrids: It relies on a contradiction that cannot be reconciled without sacrificing one genre for the other. To blend with romance, fantasy can soften the complexity of its history-inspired worldbuilding in favour of wish-fulfillment daydreaming. Science fiction can incorporate romancing the robot by filing off some edges of its techno-pessimism. But horror-romance allows no peaceful mixing; it provokes an outright fight for dominance. Romance, by conventional genre standards, demands a HEA (Happily Ever After), while horror either eliminates its characters or questions the value of their survival. It ends on a Miserably Ever After (MEA), if you like, where a “looping” element appears—the beast that got conquered might return, the circle of abuse never ends, success is either not allowed or fleeting. This means there is no horror-romance ending. Rather, the novel ends as a horror or a romance.
As one of the most commercialised genres, capital-R Romance comes with expectations that are both rigid and constantly renegotiated. A cursory look at Goodreads shows that Romance readers have strong preferences regarding the pacing of the relationship, emotional exclusivity, sexual content, conflict, and even the length of the third act break-up. Every “wrong” ingredient can spoil the dish. As contentious as this behaviour may be, it stems from readers seeking a particular emotional experience, one that demands the security of knowing that the lows won’t poison the promised highs. The pleasure of Romance appears exceptionally delicate, prone to be ruined by the tiniest of icks, with readers occasionally collapsing emotional dissatisfaction into claims of creative—or even moral—failure. Is it, then, a wise decision to bring Romance readers to horror? And for that matter, horror readers to Romance? The challenge for the commercially minded author seems almost impossible.
Making the horror-romance queer adds another layer of complexity. It produces a kind of Schrödinger’s cat of a queer relationship: The couple exists under the possibility of both HEA and MEA until the box is opened and the ending revealed. Horror, though, makes death a likely possibility. Yet, queer love stories have already endured a lot of tragedy due to a tradition of censorship which saw queer characters only allowed to exist if they were punished by the narrative. “Bury Your Gays” refers to a longstanding representational pattern in which queer characters are disproportionately denied happy endings—through death, suffering, or narrative erasure—often at moments of romantic fulfillment or self-realisation. [2] There is, then, a clear challenge in centering a gay relationship in a genre that does a lot of burying. The challenge is even greater in a story that ties sexuality to the act of creation, a form of self-actualisation for both its central characters. Much can be done if the author holds that difficulty in mind. The answer is not to avoid killing queer characters, but to understand the reasons death can invalidate their narrative. In fiction, as in life, it takes some work to keep your story—ahem— straight and get away with murder.
In an episode of the Write and Wrong Podcast, Gibson called horror-romance a “weird genre mash-up” and concluded that she doesn’t see Man, Muse, Monster as either horror or romance, yet accepted the categorisation for marketing purposes. When pressed to situate the novel, she insisted that horror is the leading force. Discussing her first novel in an interview with Amy McCaw, she expressed a deep disinterest in genre as a concept, claiming it is not something she specifies to herself at the start, nor is able to identify at the end. In both cases, it becomes a matter for the publisher, not a question that constitutes the foundations of a narrative or informs its direction. As a passionate pantser with a strong interest in psychology who tends to focus on characterisation, and doesn’t appreciate being restricted by excessive plotting, Gibson claimed to “follow” the character en route to the only planned part of the story—the ending. She also explained that her primary concern was to gender-flip the muse, and that the queer relationship was a “surprise,” not a component of the original idea at all. This spontaneity feeds the propulsive nature of the story, but does little to resolve the formal tensions the novel inherits from literary history and genre, or to maintain narrative control.
Despite Gibson’s claims, romance is central to the novel and deeply woven into its thematic core. Man, Muse, Monster is a story about ambition and creation, and Gibson makes the clever decision to equate artistic inspiration with attractiveness and sexuality, binding emotional intimacy to the characters’ deepest wants. Harry craves artistic success and feels isolated amongst his peers; the muse, whom he names Dorian, solves both problems. When Dorian arrives and announces that he is “everything” Harry needs, the statement reads not as a premature romantic declaration, but as a matter of fact (p. 57). Gibson excels at constructing characters with clear desires and fears, and that strengthens the romance by giving it substance: Harry doesn’t simply fall in love, but uses Dorian to fulfill his greatest ambition of proving himself as an artist and to conquer his fear of not being good enough. Dorian, trapped in a painting, exploited and capable of expressing himself only through another, moves from more than a century of exploitation and loneliness toward a relationship that promises freedom, mutual respect, and emotional reciprocity. This creates an involving romantic storyline with exceptionally high stakes for both characters.
The blending of art and sex accounts for much of the novel’s passion. Harry persists in violent artistic fervor: “The urge to paint, to create, rip[s] through [his] veins like fire.” It twists, becoming “an itch that could never be sated, a fever that could never be broken” (p. 55). Elsewhere, inspiration builds into “roaring hunger,” arriving “raw and unfiltered,” “uncomfortable to the point of being painful” (pp. 73, 75, 83). The desire to create is sexualised and directionless at first, but then finds the perfect subject. The line between Harry wanting Dorian to spark his art and simply wanting Dorian blurs fast. The logic follows when Dorian’s psychic connection to Harry—allowing him access to his thoughts and emotional states during moments of inspiration—extends to Harry’s sexual fantasies. Artistic jealousy also morphs into sexual jealousy: Dorian hates when Harry gets ideas from anyone but him; Harry hates when Dorian models for others. Gibson understands anticipation, taking characters through the motions of creation-as-sex and ramping up the tension before allowing the metaphorical to become literal.
Whenever horror threatens to rear its ugly head, the story retreats to safety. Harry is warned about Dorian’s manipulation, but the danger proves illusory, simply a test of their mutual trust, which they pass with flying colours. Even when Dorian turns out to be a murderer, the circumstances are exceptional, and Harry condones his actions, only cementing their mutual understanding. Harry resists multiple opportunities to betray Dorian, feeling guilty at any minor acts of disloyalty. Upon discovering Dorian’s darkest secret, Harry needs time to accept what he has learnt, but refuses to push him away despite being disappointed, confused, and angry. And Dorian, despite being the titular monster, proves himself the perfect boyfriend. As far as toxic, co-dependent relationships in horror are concerned, Dorian and Harry are exceptionally healthy, secure, loving, and cosy—perhaps too much so, considering this is not a romance at all.
The novel’s most memorable moments of spectacle are erotic, and only lightly horror-infused. Harry chases his muse through the corridors of a labyrinthine, decaying house, struggling to follow Dorian’s voice echoing in his head. He collects dropped items of clothing while they’re still warm, before capturing Dorian and enacting the fantasies they already shared in his mind. The sequence begins when they’re trapped in a bathroom during a party, listening to Harry’s friend Clementine having sex with another guest. Their attraction intensifies, embarrassing Harry, who knows he can’t hide a thing. Or there are smaller moments: Harry realises there’s a tether connecting him to Dorian and experiences physical pain as the distance between them increases, clutching his chest and fearing his death; Clementine enters Harry’s house to discover a room crowded with portraits of Dorian and a ruffled bed. Although the novel has a few striking horror set pieces, they struggle to have much of an impact at the climax. A crucial betrayal, a dramatic torture scene, an all-consuming fire, fall flat by comparison. Horror is never as spectacular, elaborate, or playful, nor rendered with as much spatial and emotional precision. The story shines when romance dominates.
Gibson is also particularly adept at capturing the emotional volatility of artistic life, delivering on the dark academia setting. Harry sweats under the judgmental eyes of his triple-threat lecturer—an art teacher, a professional critic, and the dean of the school—and is surrounded by colleagues who evaluate his every move. The feeling of somebody else’s opinion causing life-affirming elation or a total collapse is something that most artists, especially young ones, can relate to, and Harry embodies it well. Gibson explores the cruelty of artistic environments that make everything, even the quality of one’s emotional and personal experience, competitive. Although Harry has friends at the Apollo, his relationships are strained and hostile, caught between awe and resentment, every gesture of care poisoned with jealousy. Artists who share common struggles and a similar sensibility risk finding themselves in bed with their strongest competitor. Finally, Gibson captures how ravenous and demanding creativity can be—an almost pathological compulsion that affects artists and shapes their entire lives around a singular purpose. Its psychological cost remains the focus: The isolation, the pressure, and the agonising performance anxiety can be only alleviated by fleeting moments of inspiration or praise.
The novel’s understanding of art appears mirrored in its protagonist. At one point, Harry is surprised that Clementine, who obsessively paints apricots, used the fruit to criticise social judgement of female beauty and its decay (p. 109). He is ashamed to have missed the symbolism, not because that makes his reading superficial or literal, but because “he’s never truly seen her” (p. 110). Creativity is painted (pun intended) as an instinctive reflex that comes from the heart and soul of the artist: a vessel for their emotional experience, not something that is considered, studied, or used to express a view of life. Harry claims that a “fundamental statement of art” is to “show the truth, warts and all,” then proceeds to immortalise Dorian’s perfect beauty (p. 25). He calls himself a “terrible” artist for pursuing abstract art, for “clinging” to what “was open to interpretation because then it was never wrong” and choosing “loose” and “imprecise” mediums “as not to draw attention to his lack of skill” (p. 170). His rejection of concept-led forms where meaning rather than realism drives execution seems telling, but no coherent view of art emerges. Most paintings in the novel emulate Caravaggio, are described with much detail, follow recognisable patterns, and build atmosphere, but are conceptually empty. [3]
The “new” movement that Jacob Alexander, Harry’s famous ancestor, had started has a name, Greco-modernism, but no definition, nor any explanation of how reproducing Baroque aesthetics in the nineteenth century constitutes innovation. Yet, when Harry’s uncle calls the Alexanders “talentless vultures, immortalised for executing someone else’s ideas,” he’s not criticising their unoriginality, but their exploitation of Dorian’s talent—a talent which is timeless and legible to every audience (p. 8). When Harry paints under Dorian’s influence, his standing at the Apollo improves, the other students are intimidated, a gallery accepts his painting the moment he walks in, and it sells almost instantly. In the novel, art is an Olympic sport—a meritocratic activity that can be objectively evaluated, with no space for historical change, taste, interpretation, or ambiguity. It draws a straight line from talent to fame and fortune. The story misses the true horror and the reason why artists persist in the state of continuous uncertainty Gibson captures so well: that there is nothing in an artist's life that guarantees recognition, understanding, interest, or support—not talent, not effort, and not even blood magic, if it were real.
The novel flirts with a materialist understanding of artistic success: The students at the Apollo come from significant families and wield pedigree, access, and wealth. Yet even they require an extra push: the gruelling art lessons, the right agents, the elite clubs, the competitive exhibitions. When Harry is accepted at the Academy, his uncle says: “the exam was a hoop and it’s your name that did the jumping” (p. 43). But this realism is overpowered by magical exceptionalism, which romanticises and alienates talent until art becomes divorced from the conditions of its production. Genius is magical, ephemeral, hereditary—something one either has or doesn’t. The implications of the social setting remain unexamined because Dorian trumps everything, including education. Perhaps Harry’s studies taught him nothing, or perhaps he inhabits a story-world that lacks a sense of why artistic knowledge matters. The Apollo gives little indication of how education can shape artistic practice beyond offering prestige and networking opportunities. But even that doesn’t seem to be the point. The point, intended or not, is that art is not an intellectual pursuit or a form of expression, but a base instinct—and not an end in itself but a means to gain something: money, fame, respect, legacy, adoration. That idea, tailor-made to be ascribed to Harry’s naïveté and challenged by the novel’s end, is never undermined.
In the spirit of the novel, a question with implications for the publishing industry arises: What happens when the desire to build a writing career—to produce a commercially successful, emotionally engaging story—begins to eclipse the need to express anything at all? What does that do to an art form that is best suited to engage with ideas, to question them, to explore them? It’s an exceedingly hollow experience to watch a book steer towards a message, play with meaning, and then drop it, with no regard for the outcome. Much of Man, Muse, Monster builds towards a particular conclusion: that Harry’s ambition risks turning him into someone who is willing to exploit others in pursuit of inherited fantasies of greatness. In this context, Dorian takes on a different symbolic significance—not a magical amplifier of Harry’s talent, but an embodiment of lost humanity. Dorian once had his own passion for creation, his own name, history, and agency. All that has been taken away as he sinks into a painting, flattened into two dimensions, and reduced to an object with a purpose. In this light, what happens to Dorian and how Harry treats him determines the meaning of Harry’s entire journey.
By recognising Dorian’s individuality and attempting to restore his independence, Harry moves towards understanding that blind ambition is a form of cruelty which can be undone through attention to another. Harry’s art, in turn, acquires a purpose beyond self-elevation—it allows him to connect, to communicate; it constitutes their shared language. This is where the love story blooms and why it resonates. The parasitic relationship which hinges on exploitation—with Dorian, with his artistic career—can transform into a real bond based on values beyond vanity. Harry refuses to see Dorian as a muse, treating him, instead, as a partner. That separates him from his family and his classmates. It becomes the crucial fork in the road: a choice between seeing someone as a human or an object, seeing art as a means of expression or a means to an end. Once the dust settles and Harry has to sit with the possibility that he could no longer gain anything from Dorian, would he still choose him? If yes, this is a successful Romance and a story of personal transformation. If not, this is a successful horror story, which shows how ambition can destroy love, and a toxic legacy cannot be easily overcome. But the novel chooses the third option: It crushes both possibilities and offers no meaningful answers at all.
This opens a new question: Was the entire construction leading to this moment in fact an illusion? Meaning dissolves, weakening connections between the scenes and the characters, untangling narrative threads, and abandoning symbolism to wrap up into an ending that seems surprising only because it doesn’t develop the novel’s core themes or answer the questions it spent so long asking. It does, however, add a jarring dash of heteronormativity. The resulting book is an engaging page-turner with a strong relationship at its heart, which disregards both its genres, invalidates its emotional stakes, reproduces contentious queer representation patterns, denies its main character’s agency in the face of defining choices, and falters whenever it must finally decide what any of its ideas amount to. And the promise of it burns with a disappointment proportional to the joy of what it did achieve.
It’s ironic that this book is inspired by The Picture of Dorian Gray, one of the defining literary texts of aestheticism, which articulated—and complicated—a much-debated philosophy. Wilde championed the cultural value and the autonomy of art, and defended its freedom to express difficult, morally ambiguous ideas in court at great cost to his social standing and reputation. Man, Muse, Monster repeatedly gestures toward valuing art and connection for their own sake, but ultimately instrumentalises both. It’s interesting that Gibson’s Dorian—the strongest link to Wilde, the character who recognises Harry’s superficiality and who has developed a deeper appreciation for creativity and of humanity for having lost them—is, ultimately, invalidated and erased from the story. And that is, perhaps, the clearest meaning the novel leaves us with.
Endnotes
[1] Naomi Gibson’s previous two works are both Young Adult psychological thrillers focusing on technology. Her first book, Every Line of You (2021), stages an unsettling love story between the isolated and bullied protagonist, Lydia, and her ideal AI-boyfriend, Henry. The second, Game Over Girl (2023), follows Lola, who is chosen to test a VR game. [return]
[2] See: Cover, R. and Milne, C. (2023) “The ‘Bury Your Gays’ Trope in Contemporary Television: Generational Shifts in Production Responses to Audience Dissent,” The Journal of Popular Culture, 56(6), pp. 1311-1331. [return]
[3] Perhaps beyond the scope of this review, but it is fascinating that Gibson, who studied the history of art, erases religion as a subject from the paintings, and excludes it from discussion, while drawing on a period in history when art was predominantly funded by the Church—and which often connected eroticism with divinity in ways that are evoked but never confronted in the novel. [return]