AT CERTAIN POINTS WE TOUCH

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.