Just finished this, and wanna recommend it - and Frank Ronan's stuff generally - to y'all. He's written several stories on the theme of dysfunctional or dysphoric relationships (notably 'Lovely' and 'Handsome Men Are Slightly Sunburnt') and is reminiscent of a slightly more gay-tinged Iris Murdoch with a touch of '70s Irish Catholic nostalgia.
The inspiration for 'hOme' was supposedly him meeting some guy who was so fucked up, 'morality'-wise, that he wondered what could've happened to shape his beliefs in such a tortuous manner. He came up with Coorg, the six-year-old protagonist who spends his early life on the hOmestead, a hippy commune in Devon (philosophically based on a rather loose interpretation of 'Lord of the Rings') where he's raised as the Mage-Messiah of the New Age - only to be abducted by his Catholic Grandparents and taken to rural Ireland, where he's seen as a filthy Heathen.
All of which makes it sound grimmer than it actually is. It's supposedly the first of a proposed series of three or four. See what you think. |
