If I Had the Wings: Short Stories

by Helen Klonaris

Growing up gay in the small Greek-Bahamian community, which feels its traditional culture and religious pieties are under threat, is fraught with constraints and even danger. The main characters in Helen Klonaris’s poetic, inventive and sometimes transgressive collection of short stories confront this reality as part of their lives. Yet there are also ways in which young women in several of the stories search for roots in that tradition – to find within it, alternatives to the dominant influence of the Orthodox church.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2017

Reviews

[Katie.dorny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book sprung up on me and I'm so glad it did.
The writing was so beautiful,poetic and the metaphors and figurative language is something I usually don't love; here it was breathtaking.

Each story relates to an aspect of either the LGBTQ community or an LGBTQ individual discovering their sexuality, themselves or their place within their local Bahamian community.

Once i finally picked it up properly i could not stop.

[Kaat Verschueren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great collection. I liked every single one of the stories. They're interesting and creative in their narrative style and structure. I also like the "arc" over the entire collection, where in every story we have people fighting back (and winning?) against bigotry a little more than the previous story. It created a very satisfying and uplifting experience, even if not all the stories individually are like that.

[Serena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can probably tell this is an LGBTQ+ book because of the awful lump in your throat/heartache you feel at the end that I only seem to get from reading queer literature. Think it comes from Dionne’s story being the finale (cleverly done) but I was also really drawn in by Cowboy. And I think it comes from the amount of fear that runs through every character who dares to love themselves a little bit in a traditional society. Suppose another side to those islands usually depicted as tropical paradise.

[Richard May · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished reading If I Had the Wings, Helen Klonaris' first short story collection, and really enjoyed it. The stories are all set in the Bahamas so the reader is introduced to a place that, for me, was exotic. Klonaris has a deft hand at creating memorable characters.

The stories present everyday life in three dimensional reality but often have a mystical or bizarre element that beguiles the imagination even more. "The Dreamers" is my favorite because of its structure, unusual core event, and rapturous ending. The structure is multiple viewpoints, including The People, a kind of Greek chorus. The core event is one character's development of wings. The ending I won't tell you. "The Flies" is a increasingly horrifying story, a descent into madness. "Crack in the Wall" and "Weeds" are more straightforward stories of same sex love thwarted by individual hesitation and by group pressure.

All eight stories are well worth reading. If I Had the Wings was published this year by Peepal Press, which focusses on Caribbean and British Black fiction.

[Sasha (bahareads) · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I Had the Wings was a mixed bag for me. Helen Klonaris' writing is very stirring, the metaphors and language she uses can invoke a lot of feeling within a reader. As I went along in the book I found the stories grew on me and in my opinion got better (as well as longer). All of the stories in If I Had the Wings dealt with either someone in the LGBTQIA community, someone questioning, or someone just trying to find themselves within their local community. All of Klonaris' stories take place within The Bahamas, and some of the stories Klonaris used as social commentary for the attitudes and prejudices displayed towards LGBTQIA people in The Bahamas. Not all of the stories I enjoyed, in some the metaphors or imagery used made it hard for me to follow what was supposed to be going on within the story. I think some plot was sacrificed for the moral. Magical realism is injected into some of the stories and I enjoyed those ones the most. Either way, Klonaris shows family conflicts and pressures from family and society in a Bahamian way.

[beyond_blue_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/4.5. The stories were really cleverly put together - all unique, but with themes and metaphors running through them that build up to a magical climax at the end.

Mostly they're about queer experiences in the Bahamas; about people living in shadows, dreams and in-between spaces, in a world where walls, tempers, and bodies rupture under the rigid pressure of religious and social conformity.

The characters dream of escape from the ever-present threat of violence, of the hunt, of heat; their 'transgressions' butt up painfully against guns and knives and judging eyes.

It felt quite suffocating (deliberately), and I had to take long breaks between each story - but there were a few moments of intimacy and queer joy that were like gasps of fresh air.

Birds, angels and flight were themes that run through the whole collection, mixing realism, religious symbolism, magic and folklore.

Would def read again.

[Clare Boucher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helen Klonaris is a Greek Bahamian and her short story collection explores LGBTQ experiences within this community. Family conflicts and the pressure of church and society loom large. My favourite story was ‘Weeds’: the prose is lyrical and describes the progress of a love affair in the face of family disapproval. Far less successful for me were the stories that involved elements of magical realism. Here I found the symbolism lacked subtlety.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary collection.

[Rayne Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a beautifully written book. The language in itself was just fantastic and the stories were so captivating, oftentimes seeming to expand beyond reality even in their passion. As a Bahamian as well there was an added appeal for me in reading the Bahamian stories told from a different angle than the usual stories that seem to pervade the mainstream culture. I definitely highly recommend this book to anyone, with just a minor warning that some of the themes of the stories are mature so not to be read by/to little kids, but for everyone else I think it is a wonderful read.