Anyone’s Ghost

Words feel paltry, inadequate to synthesise the essence of Anyone’s Ghost. Doomed romance is spelled out from the start; the prelude is a bitter omen of the inevitability of the end and how the people we love and hate the most haunt us for the rest of our lives. We know how the story ends: ‘it takes three car crashes to kill Jake’, yet the unbecoming of it all rings as a grimy, tender, coming-of-age queer romance for the ages.

Theron’s story is beautiful and tragic, yet the writing carries an electricity that makes the narrative refreshing. Theron spends a summer in New Hampshire with his divorced dad, signs pointing to a miserable few weeks of his life that, with Jake’s arrival, become magical. It’s a time of self-discovery, the first time Theron has ever felt known and desired to know someone else. Everything he has ever wanted to be merges confusingly into everything he has ever wanted; a cruel premonition of the beginning of the end. They meet again years later in New York and rekindle their something through metal shows, flash storms and dive bars. However, life is inconvenient, stagnant and heavy. They’re followed by their ghosts, not represented by other people but also by the past versions of themselves that made all the wrong decisions.

Thompson’s writing is witty and visceral, hollowing you out and laying bare by speaking out loud simple, revealing truths. The loneliness, the fear of succumbing to an uncontrollable darkness within, is palpable. Yet, the joy of discovering love in others, the intricate tapestries of their lives and stories, their unique habits and quirks that stay with you forever, paints a vivid picture of the human experience. Profound and often tending to the debaucherous, Anyone’s Ghost is an ode to queer love, loss, and the beauty found within the fragility of it all.