Reading Be Gay, Do Crime feels like being handed a stolen car key, a lukewarm cocktail, and a list of exes you promised never to text again. It dares you to make a mess and call it freedom.
This is the second collaboration between editors Molly Llewellyn and Kristel Buckley, following their runaway success Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women. That collection delivered sharp, unfiltered fiction about complicated femininity and proved they weren’t interested in playing it safe. Be Gay, Do Crime continues that streak with another sixteen-story lineup built around queer chaos, revenge, survival, and the occasional coloring contest scam.
The anthology is stacked with sixteen stories that explore what it means to misbehave. Sometimes violently. Sometimes emotionally. Always queerly. It’s not just about crime in the traditional sense. It’s about defiance. Unapologetic, chaotic, deeply personal defiance. And the best part? It doesn’t try to be clean or tidy. It doesn’t need to justify its mess.
Llewellyn is a UK-based writer and editor with a sharp eye for characters who push back against what they’re given. Buckley, originally from the UK, comes from a background in publishing and publicity, and has long challenged the way women and queer people are framed in fiction. Their work together isn’t about fitting in. It’s about breaking form and building something louder.
The collection opens strong with Myriam Lacroix’s story about two women rescuing (or maybe kidnapping) a baby from an alley. It grabs you immediately, like a drunk friend handing you a switchblade and telling you to run. From there, it’s a nonstop lineup of transgressions both literal and emotional. Anna Dorn brings her usual brand of campy filth. Emily Austin whispers heartbreak into a void. Alissa Nutting’s “Peep Show” had me re-reading whole pages just to be sure I really saw what I saw. Temim Fruchter’s piece turns petty theft into something cosmic and restorative. Priya Guns throws two women into a White House fever dream that’s part revenge plot, part survival ritual.
Early on, the book quotes John Waters: “You have to remember that it is impossible to commit a crime while reading a book.” And that’s the trick. This collection dares you to believe it. Then spends sixteen stories proving that reading might be the first crime. Or at least the gateway drug.
What makes the anthology work isn’t just the concept or the recognizable names. It’s that every story approaches rebellion from a different angle. These aren’t just tales of robbery or sabotage. They’re stories about stealing back time, identity, agency, love. One character prank-calls a bomb threat for control. Another enters a children’s coloring contest as an adult. It all makes sense here.
Not every story goes for laughs. Some cut through with quiet rage. Others slip into grief or surreal dream logic. The book knows when to be loud, but it’s not afraid of silence either.
Beneath the chaos is something tender. Most of the characters aren’t chasing revenge. They just want to exist without having to shrink. The crimes they commit don’t feel evil. They feel like survival. Like honesty. Like a middle finger to the rules that were never made for them anyway.
This book doesn’t care about being palatable. It doesn’t care about respectability. That’s its power. It lets its characters be messy and angry and deeply human without apology.
If Peach Pit cracked the window, Be Gay, Do Crime throws your furniture into the street and sets something small on fire. Not out of malice, but because it needed to be done.
Read it. Scream into a pillow. Maybe steal something.
Be Gay, Do Crime is out June 3, 2025 from Dzanc Books. Pick it up wherever you get your books, indie or otherwise. No shame.