Nova Scotia House: Read an extract from the acclaimed debut novel by Charlie Porter here

Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter has had a profound impact since its release last year, connecting thousands to a vital queer history and garnering widespread praise from readers and critics alike. To mark the new paperback edition, here, Attitude shares an exclusive extract from the book’s opening pages.

Let me sort through who I am. Won’t take long. Paintings by Jerry. Some books that don’t depress me. Furniture is Jerry’s, mostly, made by his friends. Two pairs of sneakers, a pair of boots. Two coats – a waterproof and a duffel, back of the door – mine, not his. Jerry’s diaries are upstairs, our letters, our paper trail. It is safe.

Stones and stones and stones on shelves. Stones to remember a beach or a time and brought home and they become a stone on the shelf no memory of where it was from or when just stones. I’m so used to the stones I see them and I don’t see. Not seeing is more than seeing.

This room is open plan and nothing really and I like that nothing. I come in and there is the kitchen and there is the lounge and there is the door and there is the garden where I grow what I can to eat. It is all the same and one is the other and this is how I like things. I do not want to leave it.

Downstairs is all one room. Upstairs there are rooms but these are not my walls I cannot knock them down so what can I do. Often I sleep down here, in the light, it is better. I don’t understand that, sleep in a darkened room. I don’t get it I want to see light. I’d sleep in the garden if I could I really would. Things are dying now in the garden I love it. Wait. They’re not dying they’re dying back.

Almost sunset. The light, we had this light, we have always had this light. They are building those flats, the light will be blocked, that will be it, we will not be able to grow. I don’t want to leave I will have to leave I can’t leave. Can I stay here why stay here. I don’t want to think about it now. I don’t want to think. What can I do.

Wait there’s more to crop. I missed those tomatoes. End of the season that never ends. 

I want a beer and I want that guy to come over and I know he won’t come over so why do I bother when I know he won’t be coming over. He comes over when he wants to come over and never at my call. It’s such a game. Let’s look and see if he’s on yeah he’s on yeah he’s ignoring me. The game is the game. What is the game. Can I get out. Do I want to get out. Can I try.

Wait, somebody else. Looks OK. Ha. OK he’s alright. Haha OK he knows what he wants. Yeah OK why not. I’ll give him the address. Flat 1, Nova Scotia House.

I mean he was alright. Kind of fun. Kind of hot, body gone but who cares. Knew what he was doing. See you around, he said. I’ll never see him around. Said he was 41. Yeah right. At least I don’t lie. They all lie, everybody lies. I can’t lie. I physically can’t. Tell a lie and I am red. Always been that way. I never learned how to lie I always give myself away. I’m 48 I’m not going to pretend I’m younger, you can come around you can deal with me being 48 or you can go someplace else.

There’s that blue light. The old tower was never meant to be lit up blue, blue all up in the stairwells, it’s all blue now, the blue at night so users can’t see their veins. I used to live up there, in that tower that no one has decided is beautiful and so has yet to be colonized, no one wants to live in that tower, no one with money, no one with a choice. Down here it’s different, two along went for three quarters of a million. There’s me, there’s Nasim next door, the family upstairs, four along from them, and that’s all that’s left. The rest are private. They think they own where they live. Most cases the owner is the bank.

48. Not bad for 48. Some say I look younger. Not many. At school other boys were hot and they knew they were hot and now look at them. I mean I’ve seen none of them since I’ve no intention it’s another world I would not know them, but when I see photos, sometimes I see photos, I cannot believe I wasted all that time on that kid. What game was I stuck in then, really, what was that game, a game at which I could only lose. What did I put myself through, why. It makes me angry but that anger is long suppressed, angry as a kid, angry for life, suppress it to survive, you pretend it’s not there but it’s there.

I’m hungry. Use the tomatoes. Pastry first. Enough for one, no wait I can have the rest for lunch tomorrow. Make the pastry, smoosh it together. That was Jerry’s word, smoosh. Meant to be a mess. In the fridge a while. It is so warm tonight. Still not needed the heating once.

Everything is everything, Jerry would say, he’d say it with arm actions, his arms spanning a circumference of everything he could span. Food is everything, he’d say. We are the same as it, it is the same as us, we’re just molecules, that’s all I am, these molecules will soon disperse, they’ll find some other purpose, so therefore I’m not me at all, am I really, I’m everything, I’m nothing, same thing.

Jerry was always talking about the trap. He would say that we can avoid the trap. Or we can trap ourselves. They want to trap us, he would say, they want us to rely on them, they profit from us, they pretend to care but what they call food is rot, it will rot you. Grow as much as you can. Buy from good people. It is simple. Live well and be well.

He would say be well even though he was not well, he would say live well and be well until the end.

Fry some onions. Roll out the pastry. Cut these tomatoes in half. Onions on first. Tomatoes on top. A good load of olive oil. Salt. Pepper. In the oven. There are those potatoes left over. Slice them. Fry them. Another beer. It’s done.

I am meant to hate myself. I will not play that game. Live alone – I am meant to hate myself. No money – I am meant to hate myself. Lonely – I am meant to hate myself. And then who wins. Everyone and everything that I hate. And so I will not hate myself. 

Put on Monk. Monk’s Dream. Then is now, now is then, don’t you see. Our insignificance. I do not know if I make sense but then I do not think we can make sense, there has to be contradiction. What do I know. Wait. I will not hate myself. I will not.

Extracted from NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE by Charlie Porter. Published in paperback by Penguin Books on 19 March 2026 at £10.99. Copyright © Charlie Porter 2025. 

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