The God of Wanking by Peter Caffrey | review by Stephen Theaker

In August 2024 I attended a free one-day convention organised by Indie Horror Chapter in Birmingham, a gathering of self-published authors getting together to sell books, do readings and make friends. One of the most eye-catching tables was that of Peter Caffrey, whose books stood out thanks to their bright colours, striking designs and memorable titles. Here was an author clearly doing his own thing, not trying to mimic mainstream horror, carving out a very specific niche. You probably won’t see Whores Versus Sex Robots and Other Sordid Tales of Erotic Automatons on sale in Waterstones.

The God of Wanking – and titles don’t come much more attention-grabbing than that! – is a short novel first published in 2021. Our protagonist is Diego, who attends a strict catholic school in a village that would seem to be in Central or South America. It wasn’t clear which, but the power of the Catholic church there appears to be totally unbridled – we see them snatching people off the street. When the book takes place was also unclear, but the villagers have televisions and don’t have mobile phones, which gives some idea.

The sadistic priests at the school regularly cane the children, pants off, and Diego will take his turn, but the book begins with him in a happier place, dreaming of a sexy woman. He wakes in a state of incomplete passion, let us say, and struggles to sort himself out with Jesus watching from his crucifix on the bedroom wall. So he heads to the living room, but there's Jesus again. Fearing himself at risk of testicular explosion, Diego goes outside, to an abandoned shrine. He does the deed there, and in his enthusiasm splashes an effigy made of corn.

Diego thinks of this figure as the God of Wanking, but upon awakening from its decades-long slumber it tells him its preferred name: the Fornicator. This being, god, demon, monster, whatever, takes control first of his libido, and then of his life, and its ambitions don’t stop there. His schoolfriend Maria tries to help, but their mutual affection only strengthens the Fornicator’s hand, giving it another way to put pressure on the boy. When the Church takes a violent interest in subsequent events, Diego and the villagers are screwed backwards and forwards, in more ways than one.

I was expecting this to be a very different kind of book, one that was shocking for shock’s sake, and while there is a lot of extremely unpleasant sexual violence, torture and cruelty, that often happens to vulnerable people – children, women, the elderly – the shocks serve the story, rather than the reverse. None of it is as gruelling as it might be in a book with a more serious, realistic tone. Not knowing exactly when or where these events happen contributes to it feeling like a fable or a fairy tale, as if Stephen King were set loose on the Palomar stories of Gilbert Hernandez. I liked it. ***