KISSING THE LIZARD BY JUSTIN DAVID

14/4/2022

A dream holiday to the USA morphs into a bizarre odyssey into the unknown

I first came across indie literary publisher Inkandescent back in 2018 when I reviewed Bartholomew Bennett’s deliciously creepy novella The Pale Ones and since then they have released an impressive range of fiction, plays, poetry and short stories which often champion gay and other underrepresented voices. Kissing the Lizard first appeared in 2020, but due to the negative impact Covid-19 had on traditional book releases it is now receiving a welcome rerelease. Kissing the Lizard is in fact a prequel to The Pharmacist (which I have also read), but you can enjoy into this new work without having read the other, actually, you might fancy reading The Pharmacist after this as it stars one of the support characters.

Kissing the Lizard has the subtitle “In the desert, no one can hear you, queen” which gives the impression that this might reside at the campier end of gay fiction, but it was not like that at all and although it was in parts very funny, plays it relatively straight. Initially set in the late 1990s Soho area of London, within a few pages Justin David effortlessly recreates the vibe of that era which I remember very well with my weekly pilgrimages down Berwick Street for my music fixes from the Selectadisc and Sister Ray music shops!

I am a huge fan of novellas and the sheer richness of quality in the horror genre these days is simply staggering and although Kissing the Lizard is some distance from your standard horror offering, it’s edgy and bizarre second half is guaranteed to open your eyes. Lead character Jamie finds himself stranded, in the middle of nowhere/New Mexico, when the plot morphs from coming-of-age drama into something decidedly more sinister. I read all 162-pages in a single one-night sitting and thoroughly enjoyed laughing about it at work the next day with a colleague, replaying some of its many memorable and strangely unsettling scenes. It is blessed with a terrific balance of drama, low key threat and paranoia which is all cleverly built around the insecurities of the very naive (but equally engaging) central character.

Jamie was one of the major strengths of Kissing the Lizard, who has recently finished an art degree but finds himself working in a supermarket. Undiagnosed disappointment clings to him and he somehow feels he has missed out on the London college ‘experience’ and has boomeranged back up north to his parents as he can’t afford the rent in London. In the relatively recent past, he has revealed to his parents he is gay, although they are accepting, there are unpleasant comments from the wider family. His mother was very funny and their dynamics were amusing with Jamie trying to find his way in life without much success, with the added pressure of not wanting to let anybody down. Jamie was a sensitive guy and you will really feel for him when the dream holiday turns into a nightmare and you can almost hear his mum trumping “I told you so” in the background.

In its first half Kissing the Lizard beautifully captures the London experience; the lack of money, to crappy flats and the right of the young to make their own mistakes. The story kicks off when Jamie rents a (very cheap) room in the house of the older Matthew and quickly falls under the spell of the seemingly sophisticated new age friend who is never short of an opinion. Thinking his life has taken an interesting upswing, Matthew introduces him to new people, the promise of an exciting job arrives and before long he is invited to join his friend in New Mexico for a month-long holiday.

I do not want to say too much about what goes on in New Mexico, where Jamie finds himself isolated and in the grip of a weird organisation. It would have been very easy for Justin David to at this point drop into cliché cult mode, but instead he skilfully avoids this and paints a very plausible scenario and if the book was longer I would have enjoyed reading more about these oddballs and what they believed in. There were some outstanding scenes here, none better than the very vulnerable and desperate Jamie feeding the last of his coins into a phone box to hear either the reassuring voice of his mother or boyfriend. The manner in which Jamie was made to feel uncomfortable oozed from the page as he psychologically weakens and wishes he never left home.

Whilst coming-of-age stories are often teen driven Justin David cleverly shifts the narrative up a few years; as for many the transition from university to first professional job, as it is for Jamie, is just as challenging. Look back to your own early twenties; most of us will have a Matthew type character in our proverbial closet! The naivety of being young and impressionable is beautifully captured in this clever blend of black comedy and edgy unpredictable drama which is built around memorable characters and underlying free floating anxiety which takes the reader far out of their comfort zone along with Jamie. Kissing the Lizard was a highly enjoyable blend of genres and weird fiction from a publishing house which is one to watch out for.

Tony Jones

Kissing the Lizard
by Justin David

Justin David’s newly-released novella is part creepy coming-of-age story, part black-comedy, set partly in buzzing 1990s London and partly in barren New Mexico wildlands.When Jamie meets Matthew in Soho, he’s drawn to his new-age charms. But when he follows his new friend across the planet to a remote earth-ship in Taos, bizarre incidents begin unfolding and Matthew’s real nature reveals itself: he’s a manipulative monster at the centre of a strange cult. Jamie finds himself at the centre a disturbing psychological nightmare as they seize the opportunity to recruit a new member. Pushed to his limits, lost in a shifting sagebrush landscape, can Jamie trust anyone to help him? And will he ever see home again?This evocatively set desert gothic expertly walks the line between macabre humour and terrifying tension.