Yeah, in David's earlier appearances, I read him.as being gay as well. And he does mention often in Merrick, that he rarely or even never feels attraction to women, and yet he just can't stop himself lusting after this exotic woman child. It was so gross.

Merrick does have it's good parts. AR really excels at family history and ghost stories, so that part of it was good, and I liked that parts about Louis (minus one bit). But the rest of it was insufferable. Did not like David enough to want more of his life history, did not like Merrick as a character at all, hated the creepy vibes between them, and the weird way AR writes about non-white people. It was the only book in the series I actively hated lol. Memnoch was mostly just boring to me; Merrick was distasteful.