This book contains a fascinatingly informative introduction to a collection of short stories which varied extensively in terms of theme and style. These stories are incredibly diverse, spanning 1837 to 2021. As expected with a wide range of stories there is going to be a wide range of opinions, and I can agree with other reviews that reported liking some of the stories a lot more than others.

As someone who is queer and as someone who is obsessed with Wales, I was very excited for this book and for the opportunity to read more stories that I could relate to. Which I definitely did. While every story was something I had a deep personal connection to there is some thing in here for everyone and something for everyone to connect with.

The introduction to this book is fascinating and quite informative. The actual stories, however, vary considerably in quality and interest. The upshot is that this was more rewarding as an historical document than as an engaging or entertaining story anthology.

Well, this is simply glorious. Dozens of diversely queer short stories from Wales, written between 1837 and 2021, organised into sections with titles such as 'disorderly women' and 'hauntings and other queer fancies'.

The stories vary wildly in genre, style, subject matter, length, etc, and there really is something here for everyone. Personally I picked out a handful of new (to me) authors to investigate further, and I'll want to go back and read some of the selections again and again.

Here, have my favourite passage, from 'A modest adornment' by Margiad Evans:

"Miss Alllensore was an atrocious but, alas, perpetual cook. Coming down the garden path to the door which was generally open, their few visitors always heard furious frying or the grumpy sound of some pudding in the pot, bouncing and grunting like a goblin locked in a cupboard."

My thanks to Parthian Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

A fascinating and well written text, with a particularly interesting introduction. The cover is very eye-catching and the variety of tales within the collection means there should be something for everyone. A wonderful book.

<i>Queer Square Mile: Queer Short Stories from Wales</i> is an extraordinarily diverse collection of short stories, spanning 1837 to 2021 and including a wide array of genres, themes, and styles. The book is organized into several sections – ‘Love, Loss, and the Art of Failure,’ ‘Disorderly Women,’ ‘Transformations,’ ‘Hauntings and other Queer Fancies,’ ‘Queer Children,’ and ‘Internationalisms’ – each of which is detailed in the editors’ excellent introduction. The introduction effectively conveys the editors’ approach to this collection, which I believe is highly effective: they note that the stories are arranged thematically rather than chronologically or by identity groupings in order to avoid implying historical trajectories or essentialized experiences; a list of the stories in chronological order is provided at the back of the book. They also note, importantly, that the stories were selected “on the basis of the content rather than the sexual identities of the authors” given both the complications of ascribing contemporary identity terms to historical figures (which is frequently speculative at best) and the desire to avoid “misleadingly [creating] an artificial pantheon of historically representative figures” of LGBTQ+ communities. The editors also discuss the use of the word ‘queer’ specifically in Welsh context, which for me as a non-Welsh reader was informative. Inevitably, with a collection as wide-ranging as this, any reader is bound to find stories they love as well as stories they don’t care for, and my individual star ratings for stories ranged from 2 to 5 – overall, though, I enjoyed the collection and am thrilled to have found several new authors I look forward to reading more from.
<i>Content warnings:</i> grief, injury, war, internalized homophobia, homophobia, terminal illness, child abuse, sexual abuse, racial slurs, racism, physical assault, sexual assault, spousal abuse, hate crime, misgendering, human trafficking, animal cruelty, suicidal ideation, death, murder, fatphobia
<i>Thank you to Parthian Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.</i>