Isaac: 'An instant queer classic' - Jon Ransom

** 'SO VIVID AND REAL, IT BROUGHT A THOUSAND MEMORIES RUSHING BACK' - Russell T Davies **

** 'AN INSTANT QUEER CLASSIC' - Jon Ransom, author of The Gallopers **

Set in London across a single, life-altering summer, Isaac explores masculinity and queerness in the digital age and offers a fresh take on desire and intimacy, adolescent obsession and dangerous first love.

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.

A powerful coming-of-age story for our times, Isaac is perfect for fans of Outline Of My Lover by Douglas Martin, What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell and 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell.

‘Fast-paced, raw and emotionally intelligent; brilliant on the vulnerability inherent in so many first relationships’ - Daily Mail

‘The gay dating scenes crackle with energy’ - Financial Times

‘Garner captures the complexities of coming of age as a young, queer person…Isaac’s journey is every queer reader’s journey delivered with wit, honesty and tenderness’ - Attitude

'Truly impressive: funny, melancholic and acutely real. Isaac takes me back to my own adolescence in London... bracing and uncensorious' - James Cahill, author of Tiepolo Blue

'A richly textured, tender and unflinching coming-of-age story about sex and sexuality, relationships and power, and the psychic toll of first love. Immensely readable' - Lara Williams, author of Supper Club

'Garner's titular character encapsulates all the wide-eyed wonderment and boundless bruising of a queer awakening. Isaac will have you smiling and screaming in equal measure' - Andrés N. Ordorica, author of How We Named the Stars

'A beautifully crafted and clear-sighted exploration of a young man making sense of contemporary gay life' - Ben Fergusson, author of An Honest Man

'Compulsively readable, Isaac is both an entertaining bildungsroman and a hyper-real snapshot of contemporary gay life' - Christopher Castellani, author of Leading Men

'Garner writes like a queer, twenty-first century Richard Yates: honest, uncompromising, fearless, and completely engrossing' - Alex Pheby, author of Playthings

'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

'Isaac deals with the contemporary landscape of gay male experience... It covers sex, obsession and self-loathing, but is also sweet, tender and domestic' - Paul Bench

'A frank and tender portrayal of young queer identity, interrogating masculinity, family and the body through vividly sensual language' - Kerry Andrew, author of We Are Together Because

'Isaac thinks sensitively about masculinity, its potential for softness, beauty, and brutality. Scenes from this novel have lingered in my mind for months' - Lily Lindon, author of Double Booked

This novel contains depictions of sex and domestic violence.

© 2024 Verve Books (E-bog): 9780857308665

Release date

E-bog: 14. november 2024