Admittedly, I picked this up based on the title alone. This is the same editor team who did Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women, and I would imagine that most of the stories included in Be Gay, Do Crime would fit easily into that collection as well. (Most of these stories are about queer women. I actually can’t remember any that aren’t, but I may just be forgetting them.) While I imagined this as stories about queer heists and righteous rebellions, most are about messy, aimless queer women indulging in petty crimes, like shoplifting.
As with most anthologies, some stories connected with me more than others. Here were my favourites:
In “Wild and Blue” by Aurora Mattia, two lovers go on the run after stealing an experimental drug that temporarily cures dysphoria—but they soon realize it comes with side effects.
“’Fuck You’ Money” by Francesca Ekwuyasi begins with Sharifa’s con artist ex telling her she cursed her after their break-up, and that’s why she’s been dealing with unending bad luck. (I loved Butter Honey Pig Bread by this author, so it’s no surprise hers was one of my favourite stories.)
Maame Blue’s “Distraction” perfectly captures a confusing college intimate friendship between two women who can’t seem to define what they mean to each other.
Of course, Emily Austin’s entry, “Grand Beaver Cabin,” was a memorable one. It’s about a woman who enters children’s colouring contests as an adult, which wins her and her girlfriend a free stay at Grand Beaver Cabin, though she doesn’t tell the girlfriend how she won it.
And finally, I did get one fun righteous rebels rob a bank story in “Operation Hyacinth” by Sam Cohen, where a queer group of friends brainstorm how to save the soon-to-be-developed property they rent and up at an obvious solution for how to raise enough money for a down payment.
While I’m glad I read those stand-out stories, the majority weren’t my style. The beginning story is about a woman who is angry after a break-up (she cheated on her partner repeatedly first) and decides to break into a wealthy writer’s home, where she breaks some decorations, uses her bathtub, and falls asleep in her bed. That pretty much sets the tone for the kind of petty crimes that take place in most of the stories.
In another, a woman steals a dog from her asshole boss and then becomes convinced he’s spying on her and her girlfriend having sex through some kind of implant in the dog’s eye. She starts performing for the dog to try to get a raise. In another, a trans woman who experiences side effects from laser hair removal starts calling in bomb threats to the company after she can’t get customer service help. In one, a woman blames the scar from a childhood dog attack for all her problems now. She tries to imitate her twin to break up her twin’s relationship with a dog rescuer.
It’s a lot of messy people doing messy things. If you’re looking for short stories that would fall into the crime genre—thrilling heists or gruesome murders—you’ll be disappointed. But if you want literary short stories about flawed queer character that each happen to include some law-breaking (usually minor), I think you’ll enjoy this.
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