The elements of Alabama itself, and southern gothic, in general, are well realized here. But Max as an onboarding foreign student from Germany is not. And the magical realism aspect to him in relation to his queerness is interesting but feels tacked on or fumbled every now and then.

It’s a metaphor I am theoretically into, and the exploration of it could be interesting, but I felt like things were put into it to be shocking or interesting, while not really interrogating the southern gothic tropes or the larger, thematic meaning of some of the more disturbing motifs and defaultism actually serve; if anything.

The prose have a nice turn of phrase quality to them and there’s potential. But, perhaps because Max, as far being from Germany, is not believable in the slightest to me—maybe this created a negative feedback loop, tainting the rest of a story that wants you to just roll with it, as being unbelievable as well.