My Manchester Pride weekend reading consisted of this new novel by Justin David, 'He's Done Ever So Well for Himself.' It comes from a very new, small press and it's exactly the kind of rollicking gay bildungsroman that I needed to read. It feels a bit like going back to my roots - to gay novels, the 1990s and a kind of freewheeling narrative hedonism.
The author and protagonist are just a bit younger than I am, and through them I got to revisit recent decades and some almost-parallel adventures. It's a novel that begins with Grandma's wool bag and the stultefying fug of a close-knit family and takes us through some really hair-raising encounters with wacked-out cults, drugs and older men. There's such a good eye for detail and ear for dialogue at work, and a voice that I just wanted to carry on reading. Highly recommended and it's incredibly, ludicrously cheap on Kindle just now. But it's probably something I want to buy again, in a proper copy, just to have on the shelf to revisit.
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