Slant

By Katherine O'Donnell

Ro McCarthy, single in her fifties and working a quiet job, is sustained by her love of books and her deep friendships. Although she still doesn't approve of marriage - not even for the straights - she is canvassing for yes in the 2015 marriage equality referendum. But, as the ghosts of her activist past join her on the campaign trail and her eagerness to confront a familiar discrimination turns to obsession and fury, Ro must finally face the long-buried trauma and loss of her youth.

Thirty years earlier, Ro is a young Cork woman living her best life in Boston, undocumented and working multiple jobs, making life-long friends, and falling in love with Jenny. Soon, however, the young gay men who have become Ro's new family - from Ireland and elsewhere - begin to die. Shocked and grieving, she finds purpose in AIDS activism and a community that is loving and living against all odds.

In the wake of this macabre heyday which Ro just about survives, her charged entanglement with Jenny will bear witness to the resistance and survival of an invisible generation of warriors. Slant is a headbutt to the heart, told from within a protective community, that will reveal and celebrate all the kinds of love needed to sustain a life.

Softback book.
334 pages.

Published by New Island Books.