Joseph is one of the main characters in Monstrilio (2023), the horror debut novel of Mexican author Gerardo Sámano Córdova.
Joseph’s life is thrown into tumult when his only son, 11-year-old Santiago, dies after complications of being born with one lung. His profound grief is further complicated when he discovers his wife, Magos, in a fit of grief, has cut off a piece of his lung to keep. Of everyone in the family unit, Joseph reacts the most conventionally to this development, condemning Magos for “destroying” their son and soon becoming distant. But when Magos begins to feed the lung, and it begins to grow into a humanlike creature that calls Joseph “papi” (daddy), his resolve begins to melt. A few years later, after divorcing Magos, he is soon engaged to a new person, Peter.
Joseph is patient, kind, and often rational, and is a surprisingly loving father figure to this emerging creature. Though it takes him time to introduce Peter as his fiancé to his family, it is not out of fear of rejection but rather hesitancy to explain to Peter the unusual dynamic and background of Monstrilio and how the family supports him. However, Peter is not without fault — instead of fully facing his grief for his lost child, he moves into denial and helps to raise this monster born of his son’s flesh, enabling a toxic dynamic as Monstrilio has trouble curbing his cannibalistic urges, which hurts innocent people.
Still, despite this, it is rare to see a bi male lead in this type of family drama about grief, as unusual as it is framed in a story of horror.
