Isaac

(Paperback)

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Description

After inexperienced seventeen-year-old Isaac loses his virginity through a dating app - a disappointing yet addictive experience - he spends his final months before university escaping into a dizzying new world of casual sex with forgettable men. This all changes when he meets twenty-eight-year-old Harrison at a party.

Isaac is immediately infatuated by the handsome, charismatic artist, but while they grow closer, his sense of self becomes increasingly hazy. Harrison's demands shift constantly, and after Isaac tries everything to prove his worthiness, he must take a hard look at his ideas about love, sex and men, and his relationship with himself.

Reviews

I really enjoyed this beautifully written debut charting the coming-of-age of a gay Londoner teetering on the cusp of adulthood as, while studying for his A-levels, he makes his early sexual forays via dating apps and a relationship with a man a decade older. Set across one transformative summer, Isaac capture the vulnerability of first love and that raw youthful longing for experience, even if it is often disappointing or demeaning. In precise prose, Garner considers the interplay of desire, shame, masculinity and queerness in the digital age * The Bookseller Editor's Choice *
So vivid and real, it brought a thousand memories rushing back... I loved the sheer power of Isaac's emotions, overwhelming him - that lovely, awful, endless battle, asking of your boyfriend: who are you Which is really asking: who am I -- Russell T Davies
Truly impressive: funny, melancholic and acutely real. Isaac takes me back to my own adolescence in London, to being on the precipice of adult life... bracing and uncensorious -- James Cahill, author of Tiepolo Blue
I loved Isaac. It's so carefully written, sexually candid but full of warmth and longing, populated by relatable, believable, flesh-and-blood characters. Deeply satisfying in its elegance and tenderness -- Niamh Campbell, author of This Happy
A luminous and beautiful debut about coming-of-age in London today. An instant queer classic -- Jon Ransom, author of The Whale Tattoo and The Gallopers

Author Bio

CURTIS GARNER was born in Cornwall in 1996. When he was eighteen, he moved to London to study Creative Writing and English Literature at the University of Greenwich. He graduated in 2017 and has been working in publishing since. In 2020, he also received an MA with Distinction from Manchester School of Creative Writing, where much of Isaac was written. In his spare time, he reviews novels on Instagram (@queer_novels). He lives in Hackney.