Queer Love: An Anthology of Irish Fiction

by Paul McVeigh (Editor), Emma Donoghue, Mary Dorcey

Queer Love seeks to go some way to redress the lack of acknowledgement of the LGBTQI+ community in Irish literary anthologies, with a mixture of established writers of international standing, writers who have been making a splash in recent years and new emerging writers. The anthology has a mixture of previously published stories, newly commissioned work and those entered through the Munster Literary Centre's call out.

Genres: Ireland, Irish Literature, LGBT, Queer

158 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2020

About the author

Born in Belfast, I studied theatre at University and co-founded a theatre company to write and direct plays. After producing a number of plays I moved to London to write comedy shows before turning to prose.

My short fiction has appeared in literary journals and anthologies published in the UK and USA and been translated into Spanish, Polish and Turkish. My stories have also been on BBC Radio 3,4, & 5. In 2017 I was shortlisted for Irish Short Story of the Year.

My debut novel 'The Good Son'​ was been chosen for World Book Night 2017. It was City Reads 2016 book for Brighton and was the winner of The Polari First Novel Prize. It was shortlisted for The Guardian's 'Not The Booker'​ Prize 2015, shortlisted for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award and finalist for The People's Book Prize. It was voted Best of Year 2015 in Elle Magazine, the Irish Independent, Wales Arts Review, The Reading Agency, Top Beach Read in The Pool and a Gransnet Christmas Read.

'The Good Son' has been translated into French (where is was shortlisted for the Prix de Roman Cezam), German and Hungarian and Russia.

Reviews

[Ronan Doyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oddly pre-emptive intro here only emphasises the issues of limited perspective that attends this collection, a nevertheless welcome effort at tipping the balance of Irish literature towards some sense of queer canon. McVeigh's defensive tone suggests an understanding that his is a blinkered view and one slightly hamstrung by its brevity; still, where some of these are new commissions, there's just no defense for falling into old tragic tropes and focusing only on the LG side of a much bigger community.

[Astrid Rudjord · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some good stories, some not so good and some that I found really hard to understand, but overall quite a good collection of short stories, although as others have said, they could’ve been more diverse. Reading some of the stories again may improve my opinion of some of them.

[Cate Streissguth · Rating 5 out of 5]

While certainly skewed towards lesbian and gay voices (the book offered few other perspectives that exist within the queer community), the work this collection is doing to place queer voices within the Irish canon is still important. Emma Donoghue’s “Speaking in Tongues” and Shannon Yee’s “Thumbnails” are must reads. Their writing was stunningly beautiful and metaphorically paralyzing at times.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding, loved every story.

[Rachel Bunting · Rating 1 out of 5]

‘You roll’ by James Hudson is great and ‘thumbnails’ by Shannon Yee is beautiful (and worthy of a five star review by itself) but the rest are disappointing.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was prepared to love this anthology, I almost invariably give anthologies of literary fiction glowing reviews but I was immediately prejudiced by Paul McVeigh's assertion that he was creating something unique and even more by his criticism of David Marcus's 1996 anthology 'Irish Eros' for 'containing only two pieces acknowledging the existence of Irish gay life and one of those was a poem by a straight man'. David Marcus had already edited an anthology two years before called 'Alternative Loves: Irish Gay and Lesbian Stories' which had stories from Desmond Hogan, Colum McCann, Padraig Rooney, William Trevor, Frank Ronan, Sean O'Faolain and Patrick Boyle a far more stellar literary cast then Mr. McVeigh's volume. Also are the only people to write about the 'gay' experience gay ones? Are Patrick Boyle, William Trevor, Sean O'Faolain and Colum McCann works which involve gay men without merit or truth? Maybe it is my age but I don't believe that to be the case nor do I believe this anthology 'demonstrates why queer writers excel at writing...' (courtesy of the Irish Times) which is actually offensive. Seriously remove queer and insert a dozen other group descriptions and you will realise how horrifying statements like that are.

Although McVeigh ignores David Marcus's volume at least he acknowledges him as an anthologist he ignores Brian Finnegan's 1996 'Quarefellas: new irish Gay Writing' entirely which was probably Keith Ridgway's first appearance in print and along with other writers equally good. So McVeigh's 2020 anthology is not exactly unique nor without predecessors.

What is surprising is how colourless and in some ways old fashioned many of the stories are. I was also surprised at the authors who don't appear nothing from Jarlath Gregory, Micheal O Conghaile or Joseph O'Connor for example (I do understand that absences in anthologies can have all sorts of reasons so my criticism of who isn't included may be unfair). I couldn't help feeling that the two big name authors John Boyne and Colm Toibin were very much there as 'brand' leaders in Irish gay writing. I thought Toibin's story very so-so but then I find him to be a very hit and miss author capable of really superb work but also of great mediocrity). Boyne's story was actually the best in the collection and one of the best things I have read by him (please see footnote *1 below). The rest were not bad but I failed to find in any of the writers the excitement I found when I read works by Jarlath Gregory, Micheal O Conghaile or Joseph O'Connor earlier in 2024 never mind my more antique experience of discovering writers like Desmond Hogan.

Publishing an anthology of gay and lesbian writing in 2020 should have found a much broader perspective then McVeigh has. He almost acknowledges his failure in the introduction and, much as I love the gay anthologies produced back in the 1980's and 90's, I can't help feeling that their time has passed or maybe the real problem is that we are not sure what we want from such an anthology. Is it new high quality literary fiction or is it stories which give voice to what LGBTQQIP2SA means today? Still I am too much of an Irish man to give this collection less than three stars though I know if it wasn't from Ireland I would have been harder. Which doesn't mean I would have been right to, only that I would have less fettered in making my judgements.

*1 If you look at my reviews and ratings of the four or five novels by John Boyne I have read you will find that he is an author I have a great many problems with though my review of 'The Heart's Invisible Fury' will due as a sample if you are interested. I never doubt that Boyne is a good writer but I have found honesty and integrity only in his short fiction which was why I am not surprised that his story 'Araby' is probably the best in this anthology.