'Nothing is fair in love and war. When has it ever been? But make sure you win. That is, after all, what everybody wants. I thought that when I fell in love I'd leave a lot of death behind. But love isn't pure and shiny. It doesn't make you happy. Love is war.' 'Love is war' - and never more so than when you're young, gay, and trapped 'between the cracks of society' in troubled ceasefire Crossmaglen. Marking the debut of a stunning new voice in contemporary fiction, Snapshots tells the story of Oisin Grant's struggles to assert the truth of his emotional and sexual identity against the backdrop of a land still haunted by the shadow of a gunman and still bound by the compassionless shackles of a conservative Catholicism. Bold, frank and iconoclastic, Snapshots imaginatively crosses and subverts political and personal borders. Erotic obsession, teenage friendships, wild student parties, art, family strife, grief and republican violence are just some of the potent elements in a novel that shatters sexual and stylistic convention to probe to the heart of what it means to simply be yourself in a world where everybody wants you to be something you're not. Tender, angry, humerous, and beautifully realized, this audacious first novel perfectly captures the pain of young adult relationships.

Snapshots

Literature & Fiction

Gregory, Jarlath

Contemporary

The Lilliput Press

Anto Broderick believes it is his duty to 'live life as an Abba song', dreaming of pop stardom: 'I want my face to greet everyone else's in their morning paper. I want my voice to be sung along to badly while housewives hoover. I want my smile on bedroom walls where girls sigh and wish I wasn't gay.' He spends his days at a telesales company, 'mouthing sales-speak inanities into a headset microphone'; at nights he hits the clubs and bars in the company of 'beautiful losers, arty idiots and atheistic bitches'. As gay as they come ('I sprang from the womb in a prom dress'), Anto is cursed with parents who are 'sporty...G.A.A. sporty'. His father is a football coach, 'one of the natural enemies of the gay child'. But sport suddenly attains a fresh allure when he falls under the spell of footballer Khalid Kashani, Anto's sister's boyfriend. 'He's black, he's Brit, and he looks every inch the bum-boy, ' declares Anto's Da. Can Anto pry Khalid away from his sister? Is Khalid straight, bi or gay? Will Anto succeed in his mission to make Khalid come out? G.A.A.Y is a funny, moving, bittersweet story of thwarted love and lust.Driven by rapid-fire dialogue and a lyrical vision of modern romance, Jarlath Gregory's characters enact a tragicomic drama played out against the backdrop of modern Dublin in all its grime and glitter

G. A. A. Y

Sitric Books

The Organised Criminal by Jarlath Gregory is about blood, family and organized crime. Jay O’Reilly, reluctantly returning for home for his cousin’s funeral, is offered a job by his father. His family's criminal activity had made Jay determined never to return. His father is a well-known smuggler with a far-reaching nefarious empire. Though Jay likes to think he’s turned his back on his community, his lost-past still fascinate him. The job is deceptively simple, worryingly so, but lucrative. Despite himself, Jay is tempted, tempted by the money, tempted by the possibility of escape and a chance to make things right. Gregory’s wry wit questions the ethics, conscience and loyalty of Jay, his family and his friends. Spiked with black humor throughout, Jay’s feelings of loneliness, displacement, dissatisfaction and even hatred elevate this thrilling celtic noir novel and show that a job is never just a job. It becomes a story of fear, family-ties, male friendship and power. As Jay contemplates the job, he reacquaints himself with the place and the family he left, only to find that it is exactly as hard, cold and unwelcoming as he remembered. When the truth behind his father’s offer is finally revealed, Jay faces a primal struggle between familial bonds and moral obligations.

The Organised Criminal

Literary

Liberties Press

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