Beneath the Earth

Beneath the Earth gathers twelve short stories by John Boyne, and it is his first collection in the form. The tone is dark and often surprising, and each story looks at people under pressure at the far edges of experience.

The cast is wide. A farmer, a cuckold and a teenager coming to terms with his sexuality sit alongside good parents and bad ones, writers and soldiers, a student, a rent boy and a hitman. Some are hopeful and some are damaged, and the stories treat them without prejudice or judgement.

The recurring concerns are the secrets people keep and how those secrets shape them, and the gap between one person's grief and another's, which cannot be shared. Other stories ask how far someone will go to protect a family, or how far they will run to protect themselves.

As a collection of separate stories, it can be read one piece at a time. Among them is Rest Day, which took the Irish prize Writing.ie Short Story of the Year in 2015.