At Certain Points We Touch
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
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 LAING
'Pure delight ... A queer romance novel like no other' TATLER
It'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
'Screamingly funny, scandalously hot, opulent, deep - a devastating torch song of obsession and excess' JEREMY ATHERTON LIN, author of Gay Bar
'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
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Joseph's middling debut about memory and toxic relationships shows flashes of brilliance, but ends up feeling overwrought and overlong. The unnamed narrator, a transfemme writer from Lancashire, England, realizes it's the birthday of their deceased lover, Thomas James, and suddenly gets the urge to write about themself and their immensely unhealthy relationship with the enigmatic Thomas. The story spans a decade and several continents, as the narrator moves between London, San Francisco, and New York City. Interspersed are a vast array of friends made at parties, most importantly Adam, who eventually winds up in a toxic love triangle with the narrator and Thomas. The narrator constantly tries their best to rid themself of Thomas's manipulative ways, but to no avail. A death impacts the final act, as the ensemble cast tries to pick up the pieces afterward. The author certainly has chops, as evidenced by the narrator's sharp musings on the futility of existence ("all of these gestures we make, all of these cave paintings are just ways of killing a few hours before bed"), but the plot meanders and drags to the point of incoherence. This one needs a sharper focus to give its inspired moments their due.
