At Certain Points We Touch

by Lauren J. Joseph

Overview

SELECTED FOR STYLIST''S FICTION YOU CAN''T MISS IN 2022 - ''AN ESSENTIAL READ''NAMED AS A BOOK OF 2022 BY ESQUIRE, STYLIST, SHEERLUXE AND FOYLES''A stone-cold masterpiece by a shocking new talent'' OLIVIA LAINGIt’s four in the morning, and our narrator is walking home from the club when they realise that it’s February 29th – the birthday of the man who was something like their first love. Piecing together art, letters and memory, they set about trying to write the story of a doomed affair that first sparked and burned a decade ago.Ten years earlier, and our young narrator and a boy named Thomas James fall into bed with one another over the summer of their graduation. Their ensuing affair, with its violent, animal intensity and its intoxicating and toxic power play will initiate a dance of repulsion and attraction that will cross years, span continents, drag in countless victims – and culminate in terrible betrayal.At Certain Points We Touch is a story of first love and last rites, conjured against a vivid backdrop of London, San Francisco and New York – a riotous, razor-sharp coming-of-age story that marks the arrival of an extraordinary new talent.''Lauren John Joseph writes with such wit, glamour, and style! I haven’t read a book that so powerfully evokes what it’s like to be a wild young artist among other wild young artists since the Bright Young Things'' TORREY PETERS, author of Detransition, Baby''Lauren''s debut novel is so exciting. The writing is so fresh, funny and gripping - and carries the trademark wit that I have always loved from Lauren'' TRAVIS ALABANZA''The struggle to find ones place in the world as an artist and lover, creating self and culture as you go along - At Certain Points We Touch captures this fleeting, dazzling moment with glamour and heart'' MICHELLE TEA

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526631329
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Publication date:	01/05/2023
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	7.76(w) x 5.08(h) x 0.98(d)

About the Author

Lauren John Joseph was born in Liverpool and lives in London. They write for the page, the stage, and the screen. Their film and performance work has been shown internationally across the UK, US, Europe, and Asia. They are the author of the plays Boy in a Dress and A Generous Lover, as well as the experimental prose volume Everything Must Go. This is their first novel.

laurenjohnjoseph.com

@LaJohnJoseph

Editorial Reviews

2022-09-10
A transgender performer and writer recounts a doomed love affair with a beautiful Londoner.

It’s a phrase that repeats throughout the novel: “ten years since we met, six years since we last spoke, four years since your death.” The “you” here is Thomas James, a gorgeous scenester with whom the narrator, JJ, had an off-again, on-again affair. When the book begins, the peripatetic JJ is in Mexico City and, struck by the realization that it is about to be Thomas’ birthday, sits down to write “the chant recalling [his] life.” What follows is an almost operatic retelling of queer longing and artistic struggle: JJ bounces between London and the U.S., couch surfing, party-hopping, and trying to sustain their dream of becoming a writer. JJ tries everything from stripping to perfume selling, honing a reputation as a performance artist, all the while pining for Tom. Tom, with his churlish mockery and his barely concealed misogyny, encapsulates everything JJ struggles with: gender definitions, confidence in their artistry, the need to overcome their working-class roots. This struggle builds until the catastrophic end of the affair, though JJ’s heartbreak is unending. As perhaps befits a work about a performance artist (a career JJ shares with the author, like their near-names), Joseph’s novel is less about story and more about style. JJ notes, “My own tastes have always been baroque, florid even; I always wanted everything in gold leaf,” which is as precise a definition of the novel’s style as there could be. It’s also true, though, that this high drama gets pushed too far at times; comparing Tom’s looks to “a little boy, bundled onto the Kindertransport by his desperate mother” is one of multiple unfortunate examples.

A debut that lies in the gutter while looking up at the stars, with moving, if sometimes overindulgent, results.

Kirkus Reviews