Wildfire pre-empts Chris McQueer’s ‘sharp and sensitive’ début

Wildfire has won the rights to Hermit, the début novel by Chris McQueer, author of critically acclaimed short story collections Hings and HWFG (404Ink).

Wildfire’s editorial director Ella Gordon pre-empted UK and Commonwealth from Imogen Pelham at Marjacq Scripts. Hermit will be a lead hardback launch for Wildfire in February 2025.

McQueer’s writing is described as “capturing the lives of ordinary Glaswegian people in his signature Scots prose”. 

The forthcoming title follows 19-year-old Jamie Skelton, who “spends most of his days asleep and most of his nights wanking, playing video games with his online friend, Lee, and occasionally making the journey downstairs to the kitchen for a microwave burger”.

The synopsis continues: “He hasn’t left the house in months, and now he’s not sure he can. When Jamie’s maw tries to get him to apply for a job, he sees her as the cause of all his problems. Then Lee tells Jamie he’s realised there’s a name for what they are – incels – and that there’s a guy he’s met through the forums they can go stay with in London, to get away from their nagging mams. But in running away from his problems at home, Jamie may actually be heading towards something much worse.”

Gordon said: “It’s a bold move writing a novel in which the reader is drawn to empathise with an incel protagonist. But in Hermit Chris has managed to write a blackly funny, moving book, which explores with compassion the ways in which some young men become socially isolated, and what such profound disenfranchisement can lead to. With online misogyny currently so prevalent, a book like this has never felt more essential, and I’m proud to be publishing it.”

McQueer added: “I’m so happy to be working with Ella and the Wildfire team on Hermit. This book took me a long time to write, largely due to much deliberation over the subject matter and how to tackle it in the right way, but it felt like the right story to explore in my first novel. I’m fascinated by masculinity, toxic and healthy, and it was interesting and uncomfortable, in equal measure, to research incel forums and communities to see what’s really going on with these young men. It’s a bit of a different vibe to what I’ve written before, but I hope people will love (and also be repulsed by) Jamie.”

Pelham commented: “Chris McQueer is a fantastic Scottish talent, and in Hermit he has written a sharp and sensitive interrogation of isolation and masculinity. At its heart, this is a novel about how an abusive husband and absent father has shaped Fiona and Jamie’s relationship with one another, and the outside world. I’m so thrilled it will be published by Ella Gordon and the fantastic team at Wildfire.”

McQueer first began posting stories online in 2016 and stories from Hings have since been adapted by the author for TV and shown on BBC Scotland. He has presented the documentaries “Noteworthy with Chris McQueer” and “Let’s Talk About the English”, and appeared on “A View From the Terrace” and “Damian Barr’s Big Scottish Book Club”. He won the award for Outstanding Literature at the Herald Scottish Culture Awards 2019 and has had two plays staged. McQueer has also delivered workshops in youth clubs and prisons and to students in secondary school and beyond.