Justin David is Wolverhampton born, East London living author, photographer and indie publisher. Today we talk to him about his new book, The Pharmacist, setting up a publishing company and booking a dentist appointment!
Hi Justin. Congratulations on the new book. For those not familiar, can you tell us a little bit about it?
The Pharmacist is a love story written from the point of view of a young painter in his early twenties called Billy. It’s set around the turn of the century in pre-gentrification Shoreditch. The area was beginning to have one of its heydays, it was full of artists and traders and at that time it was still, just about, possible for ordinary people to sustain a creative life. It is here where, by chance meeting. Billy begins an unconventional friendship with an older, eccentric man, Albert, who is in his seventies. And it’s about how the two of them, Billy–in his formative years and Albert–in his third act, navigate the complex dynamics of nurture and destruction.
It’s a relatively short book/novella yet it has existed in other forms previously, did it take long to write? Do you think this is its final outing?
It grew out of a short story into a much longer, ultimately flawed novel which was never published. At the heart of this material was The Pharmacist. Once I’d identified this, it was easier to strip away the excess clay and refine the shape. The resulting novella was originally published digitally by Salt, who were and still are incredibly supportive. Later on, it was included in my book of collected fiction: He’s Done Ever So Well for Himself. However, I’ve always felt that it needed to stand alone as a volume in its own right. Final outing? This is definitely the book! But I’m open to it being adapted into other forms. Film? Drama? Watch this space!
There are a LOT of drugs in The Pharmacist, how important is drug use to the story? Could drugs almost be described as another character?
Well quite! The protagonist, Billy, is not an obvious addict. He’s a pleasure seeker: he likes dancing and partying. He doesn’t really look like the type of person who would fall foul substance abuse. He has an adoring boyfriend. He seems to be creatively fulfilled in many ways. Everything in his life is okay. However, for some reason, like so many gay men, he is not finding the connections he needs to keep him on an even keel. And so, coupled with a voracious appetite for sex, his use of drugs quickly slips out of control. For this reason, what I’ve described within The Pharmacist, can be seen as a precursor to what we now understand as chemsex. What’s missing from this storm is the advent of smart phone technology and dating apps. The sex and the use of drugs in this story are very peculiar to this time and place, in that they are related to going out, rather than staying in.
The book has a number of sex scenes in it, is it difficult to write sex scenes?
Are you kidding? I love writing sex. Sex really is part of the landscape of the book. The different sex scenes have different moods that really help to illustrate Billy’s psychological state. I suppose what’s difficult is to get that writing just right. When writing about sex, it’s easy to over-egg the pudding, to slip into clichés that we’ve all heard before. Only the reader will tell. I hope I’m not nominated for one of those bad sex awards!
Can you tell us a little about yourself, you’re a photographer as well as an author is that correct?
Yes. The two disciplines feed each other. I try to keep them both going as much as I can (you can see examples of Justin’s photography here). Sometimes, one demands more time than the other. It’s like modern dating.
In the book Billy is taking photographs when we first meet him, he has tattoos, he is gay…How much of yourself is there in Billy?
I think every gay man in London has at least one tattoo. Billy and I started getting our tattoos when men largely still had a lot of uninked flesh. Yes, we’re both artists. There’s a bit of me in Billy, but not much. I’m far more cautious. Mostly, I made him up.
Without giving too much away about the book, what do you think the future holds for Billy?
Let’s just say, by the end of the book Billy has a lot of his own shit to sort out. However, I’d love to visit him again someday. He’d be in his forties right now and it would be interesting to find out how he’s getting on. I’m not sure how he would be faring in the current climate… the life of an artist is more precarious than it has ever been. I’d like to think that Billy swam rather than sank after what he experienced at the end of the book. We need artists more than ever before, to neutralise the trauma caused by the right-wing elements that are engulfing the earth. I’d like to think that Billy plays a part in that.
The book is being published by Inkandescent, a venture set up by you and your partner Nathan Evans. Can you tell us a little more about Inkandescent?
We set up Inkandescent to publish Threads, a collection of Nathan’s poems and my photography. After that, we started publishing other people’s work. This year we start work on our biggest project to date, MainStream, an anthology of queer and outsider fiction, featuring the work of Kit de Waal, Neil Bartlett, Paul McVeigh, Philip Ridley, Jonathan Kemp and Kerry Hudson among many other talents. We’ll be looking for some amazing emerging writers to join our merry band. So, if you’re a writer interested in submitting work, you should sign up to our newsletter.
Are you a big reader? What was the last book you read?
I love reading. I can’t read enough. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. I’ve read some cracking books in the last twelve months. I’m a huge fan of Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You. I thoroughly enjoyed Ronan Hession’s Leonard and Hungry Paul, and was blown away by Atwood’s The Testaments. However, the last book that I read was 10 Minutes 38 seconds in this Strange World by Elif Shafak—an incredibly moving story about a sex worker, set in Turkey. Utterly heart-breaking.
Finally, what’s next for Justin David?
There’s another novel bubbling away, parties to go to, new writers to publish, more teaching to be done… wolves to keep from the door… and I must go to the dentist at some point. How does anyone fit it all in?
Grab the book
Massive thanks to Justin for taking the time to answer our questions as part of the Blog Tour for The Pharmacist. The book is available to purchase NOW directly from Inkandescent or via Gay’s The Word and you can check out the rest of the Blog Tour below. And if you like the sound of Inkandescent try The Pale Ones by Bartholomew Bennett published by them last year.
