The Secret Life of Suburbia

Throughout LGBTQ+ history, suburbia was somewhere to escape from: a place where heterosexuality ruled, difference was not tolerated, and you’d never find a soulmate. John Grindrod talks to Emmett Scanlon about Tales of the Suburbs: LGBTQ+ Lives Behind Net Curtains.

‘Fantastically entertaining alternative history of queer life in Britain.’ The Guardian

For many those streets of twitching curtains and pebble-dashed semis were — or still are — a place to call home. Tales of the Suburbs explores the relatively untold twentieth century tale of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer people in suburbia. Through remarkable archive material and original interviews featured in Tales of the Suburbs, John Grindrod shares stories that are messy and moving, dark and funny, uplifting and extraordinary.

A social historian of modern places, John Grindrod is also the author of Concretopia: A Journey Around the Rebuilding of Postwar Britain, Outskirts: Living Life on the Edge of the Green Belt, and Iconicon: A Journey Around the Landmark Buildings of Contemporary Britain. He hosts the podcast Monstrosities Mon Amour.

In conversation with Emmett Scanlon, architect, curator and director of the Irish Architecture Foundation.

Presented in partnership with the International Literature Festival Dublin.

Photo of John Grindrod by Katie Belcher