Description
Twenty-four-year-old Billy is beautiful and sexy. Albert-The Pharmacist-is a compelling but damaged older man, and a veteran of London's late 90s club scene. After a chance meeting in the heart of the London's East End, Billy is seduced into the sphere of Albert. An unconventional friendship develops, fuelled by Albert's queer narratives and an endless supply of narcotics. Alive with the twilight times between day and night, consciousness and unconsciousness, the foundations of Billy's life begin to irrevocably shift and crack, as he fast-tracks toward manhood. This story of lust, love and loss is homoerotic bildungsroman at its finest. 'At the heart of David's The Pharmacist is an oddly touching and bizarre love story, a modern day Harold and Maude set in the drugged-up world of pre-gentrification Shoreditch. The dialogue, especially, bristles with glorious life.' -JONATHAN KEMP, author of London Triptych "An exploration of love and loss in the deathly hallows of twenty-first century London. Justin David's prose is as sharp as a hypodermic needle. Unflinching, uncomfortable but always compelling, The Pharmacist finds the true meaning of love in the most unlikely places." -NEIL McKENNA, author of Fanny and Stella.
when love is the drug
About the Author
A child of Wolverhampton, David has lived and worked in East London for most of his adult life. He graduated from the MA Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, has read at Polari at Royal Festival Hall, and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers. His writing has appeared in many print and online anthologies and his debut novella, The Pharmacist, was first published by Salt as part of their Modern Dreams series, then republished by Inkandescent as part of the Welston World Sagas, which includes the novellas Tales of the Suburbs and Kissing the Lizard. His photos have appeared in magazines including Gay Times, Attitude, Time Out, Classical Music Magazine and Out There. His photography collection, Night Work, has been exhibited at venues including Jackson's Lane.
Reviews
"'There they are in the dark, men standing in circles ... while the rest of London goes about its business.' Much crucial action takes place in a club's toilets in Justin David's The Pharmacist, now republished as a standalone novella after having gained cult success when it was released digitally in 2014. It is here that the twenty-four-year-old artist Billy Monroe - the novel's narrator - finds himself with his lover Jamie, both 'dewy eyed and loose-limbed' on MDMA; only Billy is secretly seeing another man, one three times his age, the Polari-speaking drug dealer Albert Power - a louche veteran of the club scene, still in possession of a jawline reminiscent of Marlon Brando's.; It is Albert - the pharmacist of the book's title - who first introduces Billy to ecstasy. Meeting by chance on a London street, Billy and Albert are instantly attracted to one another. 'Billy feels a knowledge pass between them ... the kind of cruisy look he only gets from young guys'. It is only later that Billy discovers that Albert is a neighbour in the block of Victorian maisonettes in Shoreditch where he lives. Their first encounter is described with a nuanced sensitivity, alive to the pathos of a vigorous and innocent young man beginning an affair with someone more experienced. When Billy asks Albert about his life, he's told: 'I am all your failed expectations in a man'. Yet the panama hat-wearing septuagenarian is more adventurous than his young lover. 'I've done some acting. Used to be a singer', he confesses. An eccentric and an aesthete, Albert tells Billy that his 'favourite authors are Genet and Proust, and that he never eats red meat on a Sunday and that he once had dinner with Dusty Springfield'. When Albert confesses to losing the love of his life after a thirty-year relationship, Billy begins to paint the man's portrait from Albert's description of him. When he unveils this picture for Albert, Albert's lies begin to unravel, leading to the book's tragic conclusion. ; A novella, as many great nineteenth-century European writers knew, is the perfect vehicle for depicting a love affair, and The Pharmacist's concise portrayal of Albert and Billy's doomed love recalls both Turgenev's First Love and Benjamin Constant's Adolphe. But the book is sharply contemporary. David has a painterly eye for the urban landscape of east London: 'Above the flats, a texture-less bruise of luminous grey-yellow spreads itself across the sky, like a patch of backlit vellum ... The cobblestones look like rivets in brown PVC'. The galleries, artists' studios and pre-gentrification pubs of Shoreditch are brought vividly to life. As lubricious as early Alan Hollinghurst, The Pharmacist is a welcome reissue from Inkandescent, and the perfect introduction to a singular voice in gay literature." - Jude Cook, The Times Literary Supplement
Book Information
ISBN 9781912620043
Author Justin David
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Inkandescent
Publisher Inkandescent
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 10mm
when love is the drug
About the Author
A child of Wolverhampton, David has lived and worked in East London for most of his adult life. He graduated from the MA Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, has read at Polari at Royal Festival Hall, and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers. His writing has appeared in many print and online anthologies and his debut novella, The Pharmacist, was first published by Salt as part of their Modern Dreams series, then republished by Inkandescent as part of the Welston World Sagas, which includes the novellas Tales of the Suburbs and Kissing the Lizard. His photos have appeared in magazines including Gay Times, Attitude, Time Out, Classical Music Magazine and Out There. His photography collection, Night Work, has been exhibited at venues including Jackson's Lane.
Reviews
"'There they are in the dark, men standing in circles ... while the rest of London goes about its business.' Much crucial action takes place in a club's toilets in Justin David's The Pharmacist, now republished as a standalone novella after having gained cult success when it was released digitally in 2014. It is here that the twenty-four-year-old artist Billy Monroe - the novel's narrator - finds himself with his lover Jamie, both 'dewy eyed and loose-limbed' on MDMA; only Billy is secretly seeing another man, one three times his age, the Polari-speaking drug dealer Albert Power - a louche veteran of the club scene, still in possession of a jawline reminiscent of Marlon Brando's.; It is Albert - the pharmacist of the book's title - who first introduces Billy to ecstasy. Meeting by chance on a London street, Billy and Albert are instantly attracted to one another. 'Billy feels a knowledge pass between them ... the kind of cruisy look he only gets from young guys'. It is only later that Billy discovers that Albert is a neighbour in the block of Victorian maisonettes in Shoreditch where he lives. Their first encounter is described with a nuanced sensitivity, alive to the pathos of a vigorous and innocent young man beginning an affair with someone more experienced. When Billy asks Albert about his life, he's told: 'I am all your failed expectations in a man'. Yet the panama hat-wearing septuagenarian is more adventurous than his young lover. 'I've done some acting. Used to be a singer', he confesses. An eccentric and an aesthete, Albert tells Billy that his 'favourite authors are Genet and Proust, and that he never eats red meat on a Sunday and that he once had dinner with Dusty Springfield'. When Albert confesses to losing the love of his life after a thirty-year relationship, Billy begins to paint the man's portrait from Albert's description of him. When he unveils this picture for Albert, Albert's lies begin to unravel, leading to the book's tragic conclusion. ; A novella, as many great nineteenth-century European writers knew, is the perfect vehicle for depicting a love affair, and The Pharmacist's concise portrayal of Albert and Billy's doomed love recalls both Turgenev's First Love and Benjamin Constant's Adolphe. But the book is sharply contemporary. David has a painterly eye for the urban landscape of east London: 'Above the flats, a texture-less bruise of luminous grey-yellow spreads itself across the sky, like a patch of backlit vellum ... The cobblestones look like rivets in brown PVC'. The galleries, artists' studios and pre-gentrification pubs of Shoreditch are brought vividly to life. As lubricious as early Alan Hollinghurst, The Pharmacist is a welcome reissue from Inkandescent, and the perfect introduction to a singular voice in gay literature." - Jude Cook, The Times Literary Supplement
Book Information
ISBN 9781912620043
Author Justin David
Format Paperback
Page Count 128
Imprint Inkandescent
Publisher Inkandescent
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 10mm
