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Polluted Sex
A pregnant woman takes the ferry to the UK.
A fractious intimate relationship develops between an Irish woman, an English man, and her girlfriend.
Two ungendered characters contest the same female body.
A deserted wife takes a lover but remains unsatisfied.
Lauren Foley’s debut collection of dramatic short stories, Polluted Sex, is fearless in its depiction of women’s bodies and sexuality, offering an unflinching window into Irish girl and womanhood.
A fractious intimate relationship develops between an Irish woman, an English man, and her girlfriend.
Two ungendered characters contest the same female body.
A deserted wife takes a lover but remains unsatisfied.
Lauren Foley’s debut collection of dramatic short stories, Polluted Sex, is fearless in its depiction of women’s bodies and sexuality, offering an unflinching window into Irish girl and womanhood.
240 pages, Paperback
First published April 21, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 31, 2022
Polluted Sex is a collection of dramatic short stories from Influx Press and debut Irish author Lauren Foley. The stories in this collection are by and large told from the perspective of a young Irish woman coming to terms with sexuality in the context of a culture that subtly (or not so subtly) discourages an exploration of female sexuality. Some of the entries are quite good; others not so much. With 27 different stories in the collection, I wish the author and her editor had focused on a handful of the best stories and polished those a bit more. In many ways, this reads like an early draft - or perhaps a notebook of ideas for stories - rather than a finished product. Nevertheless, there is a lot here to like and I will certainly look for Foley's next work.
December 18, 2022
Longlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize
Diktat/Dictate II
– Diktat/Dictate written in phonemic script.
– Enlarged performing arts emoji. Black on white. One mask frowns. The other smiles.
// Illustration of artist's sentiments on the entire collection, all stories could be reduced to a drama emoji devoid of written text
Polluted Sex is a collection of short stories by Lauren Foley.
It is published by Influx Press an independent publisher based in London, committed to publishing innovative and challenging literature from across the UK and beyond. Influx Press won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent presses in 2018, the year I served as a judge, with another story collection, Eley Williams’ brilliant Attrib and other Stories. This year they have been longlisted for the Booker Prize for The Trees, by Percival Everett, a writer whose work they have championed for several years.
Polluted Sex consists of 27 pieces ranging in length from the 30 page title story to as short as one word or, as in the story that opens my collection, one image (explained in words at the end).
It is a varied collection as well ranging from the relatively conventional to the abstract and innovative and not all stories will work for each reader which raises the perennial question of whether to judge a story collection by its strongest or weakest entries in terms of their impact on a particular reader.
The title story “Polluted Sex” is one of a number of relative variations on a theme, with “Purple With Mottled Black”, “Before Him” and “The First Person Possessive or Proper Nouns Are Lost to the Yesterdays We All Dreamt of Anyway” all similar in style and content - tales of the sex loves of young women, often with possessive boyfriends but often themselves bisexual.
At the more abstract end ABCB AABCCB// Untitled Child’s Song is a lament in the form of a nursery rhyme of the Magdalene laundry system in Ireland, a powerful companion to the Booker longlisted and Orwell Prize winning Small Things Like These.
My favourite in the collection was Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman - a parable of man’s greedy consumption of the Earth’s resources and repression of female sexuality. This includes verses quoted from The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton, Book I, 'The Vision of the King’, and stick figure images which are also described in words in the novel’s afterword.
II
10. Stick figure. Long unruly hair. Wears dress.
11. Stick figure. Emanating secretions. Naked.
12. Row of stick figures 10 & 11 side by side six times.
13. Row of stick figures 10 & 11 side by side six times.
Overall a varied and interesting collection. Not every story worked for me, but their length means they don’t outstay their welcome and the best of the collection was impressive, particularly the use of images.
Diktat/Dictate II
– Diktat/Dictate written in phonemic script.
– Enlarged performing arts emoji. Black on white. One mask frowns. The other smiles.
// Illustration of artist's sentiments on the entire collection, all stories could be reduced to a drama emoji devoid of written text
Polluted Sex is a collection of short stories by Lauren Foley.
It is published by Influx Press an independent publisher based in London, committed to publishing innovative and challenging literature from across the UK and beyond. Influx Press won the Republic of Consciousness Prize for small independent presses in 2018, the year I served as a judge, with another story collection, Eley Williams’ brilliant Attrib and other Stories. This year they have been longlisted for the Booker Prize for The Trees, by Percival Everett, a writer whose work they have championed for several years.
Polluted Sex consists of 27 pieces ranging in length from the 30 page title story to as short as one word or, as in the story that opens my collection, one image (explained in words at the end).
It is a varied collection as well ranging from the relatively conventional to the abstract and innovative and not all stories will work for each reader which raises the perennial question of whether to judge a story collection by its strongest or weakest entries in terms of their impact on a particular reader.
The title story “Polluted Sex” is one of a number of relative variations on a theme, with “Purple With Mottled Black”, “Before Him” and “The First Person Possessive or Proper Nouns Are Lost to the Yesterdays We All Dreamt of Anyway” all similar in style and content - tales of the sex loves of young women, often with possessive boyfriends but often themselves bisexual.
At the more abstract end ABCB AABCCB// Untitled Child’s Song is a lament in the form of a nursery rhyme of the Magdalene laundry system in Ireland, a powerful companion to the Booker longlisted and Orwell Prize winning Small Things Like These.
My favourite in the collection was Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman - a parable of man’s greedy consumption of the Earth’s resources and repression of female sexuality. This includes verses quoted from The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton, Book I, 'The Vision of the King’, and stick figure images which are also described in words in the novel’s afterword.
II
10. Stick figure. Long unruly hair. Wears dress.
11. Stick figure. Emanating secretions. Naked.
12. Row of stick figures 10 & 11 side by side six times.
13. Row of stick figures 10 & 11 side by side six times.
Overall a varied and interesting collection. Not every story worked for me, but their length means they don’t outstay their welcome and the best of the collection was impressive, particularly the use of images.
May 1, 2022
Like Kathy Acker after a glut of whiskeys, these stories are seductive, hilarious, rejuvenating and intimate. Lauren Foley’s characters have barbarous tongues and know how to use them. Lacerating and sexy, the heat sears off (and through) the pages. A scorching portrait of the female psyche in a 90s Irish coastal town.
February 4, 2023
Not for me. I thought the author’s writing style was way too pretentious and difficult to read at times. I also think there’s far too many short stories/vignettes in this book. You kind of get the sense that quantity was being valued over quality when this anthology was being put together. Wouldn’t recommend at all.
November 23, 2022
My new favourite book. It's raw in a kind of comforting feel.
We lived this. We loved this way. The nostalgia I'm feeling is sticky, uncomfortable, clawing and Foley's writing a clear mirror and a cool breeze on a sometimes putrid history of sex and sexualities in Ireland. You've been at that party. You've been that girl. You know that dilemma. Those dilemmas. Those incomparable loves. But there's also a brutal honesty in here, the cutting comment, a nasty jibe that is totally Irish, and keenly recognised.
I will never give this book away. There's too much of me, of all of us, in it.
We lived this. We loved this way. The nostalgia I'm feeling is sticky, uncomfortable, clawing and Foley's writing a clear mirror and a cool breeze on a sometimes putrid history of sex and sexualities in Ireland. You've been at that party. You've been that girl. You know that dilemma. Those dilemmas. Those incomparable loves. But there's also a brutal honesty in here, the cutting comment, a nasty jibe that is totally Irish, and keenly recognised.
I will never give this book away. There's too much of me, of all of us, in it.
June 29, 2022
3.5 / 5 stars
I really enjoyed this book - it felt distinctly Irish as well!
It's been a little while since I've read an anthology book but I really enjoyed this one. Some stories were formatted at plays, some were formatted so you had to flip the book, some were like diagrams and flows. It had a good mix of conventional stories with more experimental types to keep you engaged whilst also trying something new!
I really enjoyed this book - it felt distinctly Irish as well!
It's been a little while since I've read an anthology book but I really enjoyed this one. Some stories were formatted at plays, some were formatted so you had to flip the book, some were like diagrams and flows. It had a good mix of conventional stories with more experimental types to keep you engaged whilst also trying something new!
May 23, 2024
Varied in form but unified in theme, this collection was a mixed bag for me. I preferred the conventional short stories to the more experimental pieces, so your mileage will kinda depend on what you value. Feels a little messy/uncurated in that it jumbles together a big number of stories - of varying length, style, and quality - but I get that playing with structure is part of the intent.
If it had been restricted to just the likes of "Polluted Sex", "Purple With Mottled Black", "Before Him", and "The First Person Possessive" I would have rated this 5 stars- bc they're so immersive and well-written, while still remaining innovative. I hated "The Perfect Flick", "Interlude Belles-Lettres", "Molly & Jack At The Seaside", "Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman", and that fucking nursery rhyme one. So when this collection peaks, it really peaks- and vice versa.
If it had been restricted to just the likes of "Polluted Sex", "Purple With Mottled Black", "Before Him", and "The First Person Possessive" I would have rated this 5 stars- bc they're so immersive and well-written, while still remaining innovative. I hated "The Perfect Flick", "Interlude Belles-Lettres", "Molly & Jack At The Seaside", "Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman", and that fucking nursery rhyme one. So when this collection peaks, it really peaks- and vice versa.
February 8, 2023
Shortlisted for the 2022 Barbellion Prize.
This debut short story collection (which the author has described as “unmarketable”) was published by the ever-excellent Influx Press – publishers of among others Eley Williams brilliant “Atrib.” winner of both the Republic of Consciousness Prize (for which I was a judge) and James Tait Black Memorial Prize (the first short story collection to win one of Britain’s very oldest literary prizes) and Percival Everett’s wonderful Booker shortlisted “The Trees”.
There are 27 parts to the collection – spread over around 220 pages. The title story “Polluted Sex” was published by 3AM here (https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/pollu...) and I think gives a good sense of the author’s more conventional writing while being perhaps more rounded than some of the other stories and certainly at nearly 30 pages 2-3 times the length of the next longest story.
These other longer stories (“Blue” “Purple with Mottled Black”, “Hot Rocks”, “Before Him”, “These Young Things”, “Let Ashore”, “How I”, “Let Ashore”) are relatively conventional in form but distinctive in style/protagonist/subject matter - drawing on the same ground as the title story. Typically, they feature young female often bisexual narrators, and explicit about their bodies (with for example menstruation and sex featuring repeatedly), often written in lively Irish vernacular. Another common theme is possessive boyfriends – which fits with a wider theme of possessiveness over female bodies and which is best captured in “First Person Possessive” which (in the words of the blurb) two ungendered characters contest the same female body. I found some of these stories among the weakest, unless like the title story they also drew on a wider strand – in that case one of the two female protagonists’ reaction to the Omagh bombing and the insensitive if not provocative probing of her English boyfriend into that reaction in front of her friends and family.
“Mammy Mary Says” was a favourite for me – and feels like the late childhood/early teenage years of some of the protagonists of the other conventional stories while I saw “Squiggly A Crack” (about a new Mum) as a follow up for some of the protagonists (a kind of Before and After to the collected main stories); while “Molly & Jack at the Seaside” seems like a “Peter and Jane” rewrite of one of those stories.
Some of the other stories are very short – in one case “Formalism” a single word, in two others (“Diktat/Dictate I and II”) a phonemic word and an image.
Others rely on typographical innovation “Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman” is a fable (around man’s mistreatment of the natural world and suspicion of female sexuality – both aided by organised religion) illustrated with doodles; “ABCB AABCCB // Untitled Children’s Song” a Frere Jacques/London Bridge is falling down mash up about the Magdalene Laundries (subject of course of another Booker shortlisted book this year – “Small Things Like These”); “Axis” is a graphical representation of the first line of the short prose poem “Pivot”.
Some rely on literary references – “Hills Like Hemingway” transposes Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” to an Ireland to UK Ferry while maintaining the implicit abortion discussion of the original and while also mixing in Yeats poetry.
Others draw on Irish Catholicism liturgy – including (interestingly) the opening “Penitential Acts” which proceeds from the confession – and the closing “Churching” which movingly deals with a late miscarriage.
And some – for example the futuristic (I think) “Perfect Flick”, the performance-art “Interlude Belles-Lettres” or the very short “Pinna”, “Phonology”, “Joni Mitchell Nudes” were rather lost on me.
This interview is particularly helpful on the author’s background (her and what she was trying to achieve (https://www.writing.ie/interviews/on-...) – some excerpts (my editing) ……..
Overall an intriguing, slightly uneven but never less than raw, corporeal, immediate and humourous, debut short story collection.
This debut short story collection (which the author has described as “unmarketable”) was published by the ever-excellent Influx Press – publishers of among others Eley Williams brilliant “Atrib.” winner of both the Republic of Consciousness Prize (for which I was a judge) and James Tait Black Memorial Prize (the first short story collection to win one of Britain’s very oldest literary prizes) and Percival Everett’s wonderful Booker shortlisted “The Trees”.
There are 27 parts to the collection – spread over around 220 pages. The title story “Polluted Sex” was published by 3AM here (https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/pollu...) and I think gives a good sense of the author’s more conventional writing while being perhaps more rounded than some of the other stories and certainly at nearly 30 pages 2-3 times the length of the next longest story.
These other longer stories (“Blue” “Purple with Mottled Black”, “Hot Rocks”, “Before Him”, “These Young Things”, “Let Ashore”, “How I”, “Let Ashore”) are relatively conventional in form but distinctive in style/protagonist/subject matter - drawing on the same ground as the title story. Typically, they feature young female often bisexual narrators, and explicit about their bodies (with for example menstruation and sex featuring repeatedly), often written in lively Irish vernacular. Another common theme is possessive boyfriends – which fits with a wider theme of possessiveness over female bodies and which is best captured in “First Person Possessive” which (in the words of the blurb) two ungendered characters contest the same female body. I found some of these stories among the weakest, unless like the title story they also drew on a wider strand – in that case one of the two female protagonists’ reaction to the Omagh bombing and the insensitive if not provocative probing of her English boyfriend into that reaction in front of her friends and family.
“Mammy Mary Says” was a favourite for me – and feels like the late childhood/early teenage years of some of the protagonists of the other conventional stories while I saw “Squiggly A Crack” (about a new Mum) as a follow up for some of the protagonists (a kind of Before and After to the collected main stories); while “Molly & Jack at the Seaside” seems like a “Peter and Jane” rewrite of one of those stories.
Some of the other stories are very short – in one case “Formalism” a single word, in two others (“Diktat/Dictate I and II”) a phonemic word and an image.
Others rely on typographical innovation “Winona the Wicked Wanton Woman” is a fable (around man’s mistreatment of the natural world and suspicion of female sexuality – both aided by organised religion) illustrated with doodles; “ABCB AABCCB // Untitled Children’s Song” a Frere Jacques/London Bridge is falling down mash up about the Magdalene Laundries (subject of course of another Booker shortlisted book this year – “Small Things Like These”); “Axis” is a graphical representation of the first line of the short prose poem “Pivot”.
Some rely on literary references – “Hills Like Hemingway” transposes Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” to an Ireland to UK Ferry while maintaining the implicit abortion discussion of the original and while also mixing in Yeats poetry.
Others draw on Irish Catholicism liturgy – including (interestingly) the opening “Penitential Acts” which proceeds from the confession – and the closing “Churching” which movingly deals with a late miscarriage.
And some – for example the futuristic (I think) “Perfect Flick”, the performance-art “Interlude Belles-Lettres” or the very short “Pinna”, “Phonology”, “Joni Mitchell Nudes” were rather lost on me.
This interview is particularly helpful on the author’s background (her and what she was trying to achieve (https://www.writing.ie/interviews/on-...) – some excerpts (my editing) ……..
I purposefully wrote Polluted Sex on bodies, particularly female and queer bodies; because we write with our bodies – unusual animals. I try to depict intimacies of the body in portraying bodies, bodily exposure, nakedness and bodily function ….. @While writing Polluted Sex when people have asked me what I’m writing about I’ve said: “riding”. They usually laugh and say: “writing …?” I responded: “No, riding. It’s called Polluted Sex.” ………….
Over the years, due to disability—I have Systemic Lupus Erythematosus—I am no longer able to type for any length of time without joint and nerve pain and agonising hand cramping and stiffness. …………..
Being forced by my body to stop handwriting, then typing. To stop writing altogether. I took this disagreement with my body badly. I was furious. Furious. Furious. Furious. I may be hampered. I may write forever in obscurity. I have long since made my peace with that. One thing, I will not be, though, is beaten. I will not be beaten. If I was to be forced to write in speech via dictation and voice recording then transcription; all work had to lend itself to performance, to voice. My stories were now essentially hybrid texts. ………………
My work does not exist to be just like someone else’s. My work does not exist to be representational of heteronormative ableist black and white binaries in thinking. Low resolution. Analogue. Prosaic …
I consider text a vehicle for the body
Overall an intriguing, slightly uneven but never less than raw, corporeal, immediate and humourous, debut short story collection.
March 24, 2024
Another collection of short stories that has me on the fence…. Some of these were amazing, heart wrenching and had me hooked, but some just went over my head!
An honest, blunt book about what it is to be a girl. I think every woman will find herself and her experiences in some of these stories!
An honest, blunt book about what it is to be a girl. I think every woman will find herself and her experiences in some of these stories!
June 6, 2023
An memorial of womanhood, an ode, a form of dedication. There were a few lines that stuck out to me and the natural opinion that is to follow...
“We are lusting over insides”
- Depiction of sex, of physical depictions of the body, of nudes, of sexualises pieces, of fat and opening in our bodies, of long hair that fits in each gloved hand, of wet mouths and even wetter openings. We are a culmination, a desirable object which at root is simply a body, our insides - captured of blood and raw bones, a warmth hands cannot offer.
“Good girls are not greedy”
- The social conception of want equating to greed, and to want such things, vulgar intimacy as a women is to deprive the man of such pleasure, derived from our unwillingness, our disgust.
“Until finally they have raped the earth”
- The play on words alters the destruction the earth endures. The use of ‘rape’ signifies the unconsentual practice of torture, of burning, addressing the Earth to be akin to a sentient being, one capable of breathing, of having a consciousness. To humanise the Earth, the word ‘rape’ evolves the destruction past the often used word ‘reap’, delving that the earth is not a mass catering to destruction, one that should harbour such practices, but to even enact such demoralising and unethical practices toward the soil, stripes the land past profitable gain into violating the land that shouldn’t be permeable. To rape the Earth is to know the conscious decisions of abusing resources that were never ours.
A beautiful piece of work that continues to guide womanhood and sexuality
“We are lusting over insides”
- Depiction of sex, of physical depictions of the body, of nudes, of sexualises pieces, of fat and opening in our bodies, of long hair that fits in each gloved hand, of wet mouths and even wetter openings. We are a culmination, a desirable object which at root is simply a body, our insides - captured of blood and raw bones, a warmth hands cannot offer.
“Good girls are not greedy”
- The social conception of want equating to greed, and to want such things, vulgar intimacy as a women is to deprive the man of such pleasure, derived from our unwillingness, our disgust.
“Until finally they have raped the earth”
- The play on words alters the destruction the earth endures. The use of ‘rape’ signifies the unconsentual practice of torture, of burning, addressing the Earth to be akin to a sentient being, one capable of breathing, of having a consciousness. To humanise the Earth, the word ‘rape’ evolves the destruction past the often used word ‘reap’, delving that the earth is not a mass catering to destruction, one that should harbour such practices, but to even enact such demoralising and unethical practices toward the soil, stripes the land past profitable gain into violating the land that shouldn’t be permeable. To rape the Earth is to know the conscious decisions of abusing resources that were never ours.
A beautiful piece of work that continues to guide womanhood and sexuality
February 3, 2023
I enjoyed some of the earlier stories the best, as stated by a previous reviewer these stories all feel distinctly Irish in nature. Overall I really liked it, but I would advise any would-be readers to look up some content warnings as a quite visceral second-person sexual assault scene occurs early on with no indication that one would be included in the story and could be potentially upsetting for some people.
'Blue' and 'Hot rocks' are personal favourites (warning as Hot rocks contains a sexual assault).
'Blue' and 'Hot rocks' are personal favourites (warning as Hot rocks contains a sexual assault).
September 5, 2023
A wildly disappointing series of conceptual misfires from a writer who doesn't have a natural talent for writing and who doesn't have anything earth-shattering or subtle to say. Stories as sentence diagramming, one word paragraphs, commentary on photos. I've seen this over and over and over and Foley doesn't add anything new or insightful.
February 28, 2024
A collection full of potential but unfortunately ceases to live up to the expectation of greatness laid out in the foundational pages. Foley puts forward an incredibly creative collection experimenting with style and language throughout, but at times the content itself can become secondary to the stylistic experiments
February 10, 2023
The author is extraordinary. I am in awe. This book is full of 'in your face' - 'tell it like it is' stories, written with raw abandonment. Thought provoking, provocative, enthralling and completely absorbing. Prepare to be shocked, prepare for something different - this is bloody brilliant.
September 14, 2022
3.5 stars
November 23, 2022
This is an amazing book, which I read at once! I LOVE IT!
November 27, 2022
This is a fascinating collection written in beautiful differing styles that really bring the reader into experiences of body, love and sex
December 6, 2022
really loved the way this was written and how different it is. some short stories were stronger than others, as with all short story collections tbf
April 18, 2023
I enjoyed some of the earlier stories but towards the middle and end I just found the writing too difficult t read
February 2, 2024
I enjoyed a lot of the short stories here. The more experimental writing went over my head somewhat but this was a good read from an interesting Irish author. I would read more of her work.
May 13, 2023
Polluted Sex is a triumph of Irish Storytelling and to my delight, much queerer than I had pinned it to be.
I don’t want to give too much away, but these are some of my favourite from the collection: Blue, Polluted Sex, Joni Mitchell Nudes, Pivot and Churching.
I don’t want to give too much away, but these are some of my favourite from the collection: Blue, Polluted Sex, Joni Mitchell Nudes, Pivot and Churching.
November 23, 2022
June Caldwell - no slouch of a shake-you-to-your-footwear short story writer herself - calls these stories "Uncompromising and raw" (undeniably true) and their author "A new voice in Irish fiction" (true if we're lucky; for then there will be more). Writing this well about sex and desire tends to be regarded as embarrassing, and so it's rare, and rarely gets the credit it deserves. There's a sniggering, famous award for doing it badly, but for doing it splendidly...radio silence attends. I'm not sure if that's an Irish disease, but it's certainly an English one. It'll cheat you out of things worth reading if you're not careful. Don't let it in this case.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews