Polluted Sex
UK Publisher
Influx Press
Date Published
April 28th, 2022
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.
Reviews
Polluted Sex alternately challenges, interests, confuses, humours, shocks, and engages its reader. What art ought to do
- The Irish Independent
Formally experimental – mini plays, time-stamped fragments, prose-as-prayer – in work that’s political, comic and genuinely original.
- Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations
A brave and boisterous new voice in Irish fiction
- June Caldwell
Religion, desire and sin are laid bare and made strange in Foley’s succulent language that drips from the page like an overripe fruit, sweet but spoiling at the same time.