The Pharmacist

Love is the Drug 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. 'As lubricious as early Alan Hollinghurst, The Pharmacist is the perfect introduction to a singular voice in gay literature.' THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

JUSTIN DAVID is a writer and photographer. A child of Wolverhampton, he has lived and worked in East London for most of his adult life. He graduated from the MA Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers. He is the author of a book of collected fiction, He's Done Ever So Well for Himself and the photographer of Threads, a poetry and photography collaboration with Nathan Evans, which was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. His debut novella The Pharmacist was published by Salt as part of their digital Modern Dreams series. This is the first time it has been published as a standalone paperback.