Michael Amherst
‘”If none of us can be as we want, then what is the point in anything?” He cannot believe his life should already be prescribed for him, written out already.’
A poignant debut novel about a boy on the precipice of adulthood, struggling to understand how he might give and deserve love.
Michael Amherst
Using bisexuality as a frame, Go the Way Your Blood Beats questions the division of sexuality into straight and gay, in a timely exploration of the complex histories and psychologies of human desire.
A challenge to the idea that sexuality can either ever be fully known or neatly categorised, it is a meditation on desire’s unknowability. Interwoven with anonymous addresses to past loves – the sex of whom remain obscure – the book demonstrates the universalism of human desire.
Part essay, part memoir, part love letter, Go the Way Your Blood Beats asks us to see desire and sexuality as analogous with art – a mysterious, creative force.
Bringing together the winning and shortlisted essays from the 2020 Hubert Butler Essay Prize, Self and Society gives five fresh perspectives on the tension between individual freedom and communal solidarity, asking what we owe our communities and why it matters.
Winner Michael Amherst takes identity politics as his theme, questioning whether the stratification of society in the name of social justice is helpful or harmful in the pursuit of equality.
Bodies: we all have them, but our relationship with our own body is completely unique and specific to us, to our background, our gender, our sexuality, our race, our faith, our health and our mind. It is an incredibly important relationship to explore. On Bodies is a collection of short stories, essays, poetry and art to explore the often difficult, often miraculous relationships people have with their bodies.
