First published 2009
In "Hear Me Out," an evangelical preacher discovers his true voice through disturbing means. Two rapists in "The Valet's Room" play at friendship in a London hotel's basement. A cook confronts his moment of reckoning in a loyalist drinking club. A thirteen-year-old boy watches his alcoholic mother cling to faded glory as "The Linford Linnet." A middle-aged man returns to rural Ulster to face his dying father and buried past. These seven stories follow people trapped between their fantasies and harsh realities. Leitch captures characters who deceive themselves to survive circumstances beyond their control. The collection moves between savage honesty and dark humor, revealing the human cost of living on society's edges. Each story exposes the gap between who these people believe they are and who they actually become.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, contemporary
Vibes: dark, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: character-study, unreliable-narrator
Setting: London, Ulster
Period: 20th-century
282 pages · Paperback · Lagan Press
Content warnings: abuse, addiction, alcohol-abuse, depression, mental-illness