Nova Scotia House - by Charlie Porter (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Johnny Grant faces stark life decisions. Seeking answers, he looks back to his relationship with Jerry Field. When they met, nearly thirty years ago, Johnny was 19, Jerry was 45. They fell in love and made a life on their own terms in Jerry's flat: 1, Nova Scotia House. Johnny is still there today - but Jerry is gone, and so is the world they knew.

As Johnny's mind travels between then and now, he begins to remember stories of Jerry's youth: of experiments in living; of radical philosophies; of the many possibilities of love, sex and friendship before the AIDS crisis devastated the queer community. Slowly, he realizes what he must do next--and attempts to restore ways of being that could be lost forever.

Nova Scotia House takes us to the heart of a relationship, a community and an era. It is both a love story and a lament; bearing witness to the enduring pain of the AIDS pandemic and honouring the joys and creativity of queer life. Intimate, visionary, and profoundly original, it marks the debut of a vibrant new voice in contemporary fiction, and a writer with a liberating new story to tell.

Review Quotes

"An extraordinary work of the imagination . . . There is so much heart and longing in it that it filled my soul. It is a profound work."
--Hilton Als

"I truly think Charlie Porter is doing something new."
--Olivia Laing

"The fiction of Nova Scotia House asks both its reader and its author: How can we connect again with radical queerness and countercultural ideas of living? How can we live life as fully, optimistically, and queerly as possible?"
--Anna Cafolla, Vogue

"A book made out of conversation, internal and external, dropping punctuation as if you are slowly rushing to a train, incantatory . . . A softly inspiring book about lived history and time and, always, love."
--Eileen Myles

"Profoundly, bracingly human . . . an incantation to all that we can lose in life, even as we are still busy living it: youth, hope, optimism, alongside the helpless yearning for a better tomorrow."
--Nick Duerden, The Observer

"A tender tale of gay love and loss -- set now and in the 1990s -- it's got hookups of every persuasion."
--Evan Moffitt, BUTT

"Just extraordinary. To read it is life-changing."
--Chantal Joffe

"I didn't want to let this book go. The way it reveals its narrator, and its secrets--the pockets of emotion and memory that we half-hide from ourselves--is astonishing."
--Nate Lippens

"In fresh and vivid prose, Porter takes us right to the heart of a world filled with love, loss, and courage."
--Neil Bartlett

"This book occupies the spaces, the lives in between, the connections we make, the memories still happening in our heads, our bodies' responsibility to the state we put them in, growing, lusting, dying, reviving, sold on, the ruins of our lives, the communities of our past, another kind of economy, of sex and loss and weeds and words, this work of genius, Nova Scotia House."
--Philip Hoare

"This is going to blow reader's minds. Intense, physical, true."
--Paul Flynn

"Surely the tenderest of AIDS novels . . . It makes the always radical argument that play is more important than work. At heart, it's a queer manifesto, proclaiming the value of queer experience and soul."

--Robert Glück

About the Author

Charlie Porter is a writer, fashion critic and curator. He has written for the Financial Times, the Guardian, The New York Times, GQ, Luncheon, i-D, and Fantastic Man, and has been described as one of the most influential fashion journalists of his time. Porter co-runs the London queer rave Chapter 10, and is a trustee of the Friends of Arnold Circus, where he is also a volunteer gardener. He lives in London.