Variations

'Jacques's voice sings out loud and clear – wistful, drily humorous, stiletto-sharp.' – The Observer Variations is the debut short story collection from one of Britain's most compelling voices, Juliet Jacques. Using fiction inspired by found material and real-life events, Variations explores the history of transgender Britain with lyrical, acerbic wit. Variations travels from Oscar Wilde's London to austerity-era Belfast via inter-war Cardiff, a drag bar in Liverpool just after the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Manchester's protests against Clause 28, and Brighton in the 2000s. Through diary entries of an illicit love affair, an oral history of a contemporary political collective; a 1920s academic paper to a 1990s film script; a 1950s memoir to a series of 2014 blog posts, Jacques rewrites and reinvigorates a history so often relegated to stale police records and sensationalist news headlines. Innovative and fresh, Variations is a bold and beautiful book of stories unheard; until now. 'Everything about this book—from the conception, to the language, to the execution—makes me wish I'd been the one to write it. Except I couldn't have. Juliet Jacques is a complete original and this book is the proof.' – Torrey Peters