This is a beautiful book on love, loss, and grief. It takes place in a creative community devastated by the AIDS epidemic. At first I didn’t understand the writing style, the fragmentation, the coherent incoherence. I soon realised what seemed like disparate strands were not, but instead were Johnny’s stream of consciousness. From there on I devoured every word.

Johnny is 19 when he meets Jerry, an older man who is HIV positive. Their life together, their love, is beautiful, glorious, and heartbreaking. How Jerry brings a new awareness and a new way of life to Johnny is breathtaking. I cried. Nova Scotia House is a book which has lingered with me. More than anything when I finished reading it I wanted to pick up another book, one written by Jerry, to hear and feel and experience his wisdom further. Charlie Porter has created a masterpiece of words and of our culture.

My thanks to Penguin Press, NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

It took me a while to get used to the writing style of this book but it is in fact very apt for a reflective book of this nature. AIDs in the 80s was the same as Covid in that they were both new virus’. Both virus’ caused global fear and when it was discovered that AIDs was being passed around the gay community, they not only suffered from the virus but from the way they were treated by society. A very sad time. The book reflects on this as well as on better times. There is grief and sadness but also hope. Thank you Netgalley for an advance copy of this book.

Charlie Porter’s first foray into fiction, NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE, is a beautiful exploration of love, and grief. It centres around Johnny, as he remembers his partner Jerry and their relationship before Jerry’s death at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Twenty-four years after Jerry’s death (and approaching the age Jerry was when they met), Johnny still lives in the flat they shared at Nova Scotia House, watching the world change around him.

Written as an inner monologue, Johnny’s focus moves between his current moments and his memories of thirty years before, when he was 19 and learning how to be a person in a world full of judgement. I loved the tenderness of many of Johnny’s memories of Jerry; especially of things like being taught to make bread, keeping Jerry’s original mother alive and trusting his neighbour to feed the dough if he is away. These moments in the present time add up, as Porter cleverly uses Johnny’s attention to move through time and manages to create an ultimately hopeful narrative out of Johnny’s (and of the wider LGBTQ+ community’s) pain.

A unique love story, about life and legacies. Gorgeous.

This book broke me, put me back together, then broke me all over again. The heartbreak being told from the perspective of someone that's built their life around their partner, the way everything reminds them of the one they've lost, it's visceral and real.
The AIDS pandemic setting adds to the sorrow, the fact that this is lived history for so many of our LGBTQ+ community, but not enough. A whole generation lost. Charlie's writing evokes such strong imagery of this era, and reminds us how far we've come but how far we have yet to go.

DNF I thought I was going to like this book from the description but unfortunately I just couldn’t get in to it. It had very child like writing which was really starting to annoy me so simple stopped reading

Nova Scotia House is told in the unique interior voice of Johnny Grant, who as a 19-year-old in the 1980s met and fell in love with Jerry Field, a 45-year-old who was HIV positive at a time when that meant a guaranteed and imminent death sentence. It’s narrated from some 30 years hence, as Johnny struggles to negotiate the modern world without Jerry (now long dead) and without much of the exuberance and idealism that characterised their time together.

The novel jumps around in time, between the gentrified tower blocks and soulless hookups of Johnny’s modern London and back to various points in his life with Jerry (and soon after his death) in the 80s and 90s. We learn about Jerry’s international playboy lifestyle, his experiments in communal living, and his eventual settling down alongside Johnny, with art, gardening and cooking providing a different pace of living as he encourages Johnny’s own youthful experimentation while he himself contemplates a tragic early demise. While much of the novel is very much an intimate affair, chronicling both the joy and the sadness of the central pair’s doomed relationship, it also very much opens up outwards to shine a light on the wider tragedy of AIDS. Memorable sections include Johnny’s passionate on-stage protest at a medical company that rather than making its lifesaving drugs accessible seems instead focusing on sowing hatred; and a later post-Jerry section in which he visits the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, with the (presumably real-life) visual examples that Porter unexpectedly deploys truly heartbreaking to see.

It’s a book that’s told in a unique voice, imitative of Johnny’s interior monologue in a way that involves a lot of repetition and little punctuation. While initially a little tough to orient oneself around as a reader, it quickly settled into place for me and represented a pacey, brutally honest mode of storytelling, reminding me a little of James Kelman or something along those lines. The more you understand Johnny and his life experience, the more the mixture of anxiety-ridden hesitancy punctuated by poetic bursts of passion that the language conveys begins to make sense.

It’s a book that creeps up on you somewhat. It begins in a whirl of energy, with vibrant descriptions of clubbing, hooking up and some graphic sex. But its emotional core takes a little longer to develop, as Johnny explores his past, both as a form of belated grief for his lost love and seemingly as a way of pulling together ideas and lessons that Jerry taught him, and using them to begin to shape a new, potentially more hope-filled life.

Along the way it doesn’t shy away from the depths of pain endured by Jerry and the loss felt by Johnny, and is certainly not an easy read as a result. But it’s also one that scatters through notes of celebration of life, highlights the simple and hard to explain small joys that keep people going through extremes of suffering, and ends on a note of relative optimism, in spite of everything.

A really strong debut which tackles familiar and tragic themes in a fresh voice. (8/10)

Thank you to Charlie Porter, Penguin Books, and NetGallery for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Overview:
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.

Review:
Unfortunately the writing style was too jarring and I had to dnf. I do understand this is a matter of preference and I can see a lot of potential in the writing. The premise was interesting and I’m disappointed I didn’t enjoy it more.

God this was so devastatingly beautiful. It took a few chapters to get into the swing of the narrative, but I loved the unique writing style of this debut, and it's a style that would make the narration of an audiobook even more poignant. This had me an emotional wreck, and I regret absolutely none it. Wasn't something I could read in one, two, or even half a dozen sittings, I found myself taking breaks for days at a time so I could process what I was reading and feeling, and I think the writing style works well in that sense - this wasn't a book where I could skim over paragraphs. It made me take in each and think about every word of Johnny's reflections and the depth of Porter's writing. This one will strike an emotional chord with many and will be very difficult to forget about.

Couldn't be more thankful to NetGalley and Penguin Press Uk for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an unbias review

*Review posted on StoryGraph; Amazon review to follow on Pub date

Oh my goodness. What a roller coaster read; this pulled at my heart strings and snapped a couple along the way. I wept more than once at the overwhelming sadness as Johnny reflects upon his life without Jerry. Set at the height of the AIDS tragedy, Jerry is much older and dying. Nova Scotia House was their home together, living a lifestyle they chose and Johnny reflects upon their time together.

It’s a while since I read a stream of consciousness novel. Bolaño used this narrative style in one of his shorter novels and it worked very well. I found it easy to absorb the words without the usual grammatical conventions and it really added to the flow as Johnny’s grief and outpourings are documented. But this isn’t in any way downbeat. It’s a homage to love, commitment, friendship and more. It’s takes powerful writing to hit the emotions hard and Charlie Porter has done so in spades. I rarely return to titles, but feel there’s so much more in this story that I may have missed on a single read, I’ll be going back to it. It’s haunting and I hope it’s selected for awards. Just brilliant.

Told through a stream of consciousness narrator,Johnny, who looks back at a doomed relationship with an older man at the later stages of HIV. They have shared the heartbreak of love which cannot have a future, but they have a connection which endures. This is a love story, albeit unfulfilled, as Johnny looks for physical connections elsewhere, and lives a life which can feel uncomfortably raw and meaningless. The gay sex scenes are explicit and numerous, and not for the faint hearted, but ultimately show us the difference between these animal urges and an enduring emotional attachment. The language can be stilted and monotonous, but it shows the confusion and desperation felt by Johnny, at the end of the day who is just a young gay man in a world being ripped apart by prejudice and disease. He is supported by friends, and they have to be his salvation.

This book made me sob and it made me think, and yet it has a wonderful lightness to it, thanks to the free-flowing prose. It's essentially a love letter, and you just can't help but fall in love with Jerry as well. My favourite parts are all the conversations between Jerry and his friends and his lover, Johnny. Jerry seems to be speaking directly to us, and urgently, with Johnny as his messenger.
More fiction from Charlie Porter, please!

1 Nova Scotia House is the shared flat of Jerry and Johnny. Jerry and Johnny are keen to live a self-sufficient lifestyle by growing their own food and living very frugally. Set at the height of the HIV epidemic we learn quite early on that Jerry has HIV and this story follows Jerry and how he faces life with the disease and subsequently Johnny learning to live without the love of his life.

I have never read a book written in this style before, I struggled initially with around the first third, the punctuation is messy and I found I had to be really focused to absorb the writing style - I have later learned that this style of writing is known as "stream of consciousness" which is a narrative style that tries to capture a character's thought process in a realistic way often incorporating sensory impressions, incomplete ideas and rough grammar. Once I was used to the writing style I actually loved it and became totally engrossed in the book and Johnny and Jerry's story.

It is an emotional rollercoaster of a read, it highlights the prejudice faced by the gay community, not just socially but also medically and at the same time beautifully captures the friendship/found family that was born from that prejudice.

Once you get your head around the writing style it is a wonderful read which I would highly recommend. I have seen on Instagram that Charlie Porter is narrating the audiobook and I am interested to hear this writing style narrated, I think it would be completing compelling.

A really moving novel about love and grief.

The writing style took a while to get the hang of, but it doesn’t take away from the emotion of the book and what is a truly beautiful (although heartbreaking) story.

Quite a hard book to read due to the writing style. It did get easier the more I got used to it. An emotional story which brough up many feelings about how badly people with HIV were treated. I found I had tears in my eyes a few times.

4.5⭐

A beautiful and devastating story of queer love and loss. Told in a stream-of-consicousness style, Nova Scotia House tells the story of Johnny and his parter and love of his life, Jerry, and their brief but brilliant time together. This one took me a minute to get into and understand the flow of the unique writing style, but once I did, I was hooked. I'm often drawn to stories that deal with grief, and this one handled that facet extremely well, touching on the impact of the AIDS epidemic on both an intimate, personal level, and within the queer community at large. Nova Scotia House is equal parts devastating as it is hopeful, which makes for a raw, bittersweet story that will stick with me for some time.

a beautiful and devastating novel about life prior and post AIDS and HIV pandemic. The writing style reflects grief, loss, hope, love. It took me a while to get into the book and I had to reread a lot of pages, however once I was into it I was hooked.

A book about love, hope, pain and grief. Jonny meets the glamorous vivacious Jerry who is significantly older than him. Soon they are inseparable as Jerry shows Jonny the beauty of life. Their relationship is one of respect as each other is free to seek sexual relations outside of the home. Through Jerry’s stories, we are given insight into a life that society rejects. People who do not subscribe to the norm because of their sexual orientation. Instead, they move around underground on the outskirts. Taking over warehouses they build communities where everyone looks after one another as well as sleeping with each other.

The book covers the HIV and AIDS epidemic and we see the loss and pain that spreads throughout a community that feels invisible to those who have the power to develop drugs that could be potentially lifesaving.

Porter opens with Jonny packing up the house he shared with Jerry and ends with him leaving to live a life that refuses to die as London undergoes regentrification. There is a real sense of alienation and isolation throughout as the characters live in fear when simply walking down streets. The threat of attack or abuse is very real.

This is a book that will pull on your heart strings largely due to the fact that it happened. Yes, this is a book of fiction but so many elements are true. Who could not fall in love with these colourful characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Press Uk for the opportunity to read this ahead of publication.

This is published on the monthly book page at media, arts and culture magazine outsideleft,com - here: https://outsideleft.com/main.php?updateID=3395#charlie-porter
NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE
by Charlie Porter
(Particular Books)
Charlie Porter wowed with 'What Artists Wear' - as he picked through the closets of artists you love for their look. Charlie got the details. With an exacting ability to connect work with wear, for his sighting of signs we don't see, so much so that Olivia Dean in the Guardian newspaper imagined Porter as a kind of "punk cousin to John Berger." I loved 'What Artists Wear' so much that I gave it away several times. Now we have Porter's debut novel. Nova Scotia House will be available on March 20th. A story of loss and grief, sex and love, and refusing to relinquish dreams, Charlie's publisher says. He said he would understand if it was too much for me, that I could leave him, that I was young, I should be living, I said to him, I am living. 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. "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." Can't wait to be sad. (Ancient Champion)

Nova Scotia House is 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. The rhythm of the sentences is a spell. The pain is palpable, but worn with a kind of light melancholy, alternately bemused and amazed by the way things have turned out. Johnny and Jerry, their relationship, the long trail of damage inflicted by AIDS, the fight against numbness, and the way this book folds time again and again are with me - Nate Lippens

It’s a book made out of conversation, internal and external, it’s a variety of oral literature, I think, dropping punctuation as if you are slowly rushing to a train, incantatory, and Charlie Porter delivers a collected sensation that you are in it. We remember where we stood and forgetting is also enough. What a softly inspiring book about lived history and time and like I said, or he said, always love

This is a truly excellent novel about grief and the passage of time. It's all about losing-loved ones, youth, the vibrant queer world that existed before the AIDS epidemic-yet it strikes a somewhat hopeful tone; that things can endure, that there is hope for new ways of radical living, and the events that shape us will continue to do so in ways we might not imagine.

(I am also planning to write about it for my march newsletter on Substack)