City Secrets by Cathy Bolton

City Secrets

Cathy Bolton

This is a collection of short stories by gay, lesbian and transgender writers many of whom were born or based in Manchester. It is not for the faint-hearted or those who dislike strong language or explicit sex, but if that's not a problem, you might well find these stories touching, funny, familiar and perhaps surprising, by turns. After all, love is love, and you don't always choose who you share it with.

Extract
So once upon a time, two men met in the public house they still call Via Fossa, on a thoroughfare they call Canal Street, in the old, small city of Manchester. They met beneath a pile of glued-up prayer books and a reclaimed hymn-board, just to the right of the fag machine. They met - and were married - while Eddie's bridesmaids shrieked at the bar and Vin's best man gushed an afternoon's lager into the toilets.
Parallels
  • A Crocus Selection by Matthew Sweeney (ed)
  • While England sleeps by David Leavitt
  • The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi