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
JUSTIN DAVID is a child of Wolverhampton who 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 and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers. His debut novella, The Pharmacist, was described in the Times Literary Supplement as ‘the perfect introduction to a singular voice in gay literature.’
Tales of the Suburbs is the first book in the Welston World Sagas.
Justin is one half of Inkandescent with Nathan Evans. In 2021, amidst the Covid-19 pandemic, they published their first collection, MAINSTREAM: An Anthology of Stories from the Edges, championing underrepresented voices. They also published Address Book by Neil Bartlett, an Observer Book of the Year, which has since been shortlisted for the Polari Prize.
