All-Night Pharmacy is Ruth Madievsky’s debut novel, a neo-noir coming-of-age story.
Set in modern Los Angeles, All-Night Pharmacy follows an anonymous narrator who begins the first chapter on the night of her high school graduation and follows her life for about the next five years. The narrator has a charismatic, wild-child sister, Debbie. The two sisters share both a devastating family history as well as a traumatic upbringing, and have a deeply toxic, emotionally enmeshed relationship, which worsens when both of them, over the course of the following years, develop heavy drug addictions and engage in multiple forms of reckless behavior.
When Debbie disappears after an altercation with her sister, the narrator gets a job as a secretary at an emergency room, which gives her access to better pills she can both use and distribute. As she does this, she decides to get clean; the narrator debates searching for her missing sister—or whether she is better off not having her in her life.
The narrator is firmly bi. We see her have sexual relationships with unimpressive men (Ronnie and Franklin), and flirt with both men and women from the beginning of the novel until its end. Her most significant relationship is with Sasha, a beautiful Moldovan immigrant and psychic who claims she is an “amulet” to guide her. Sasha is her first queer relationship and queer sexual experience.
Though the narrator is highly observational and very darkly funny, and we give her a lot of grace for her difficult past, breaking free from a toxic family relationship and addiction, she is still often greedy, manipulative, cheats, and is judgmental — many traits of the stereotypical bi villain archetype. Though we try to give her space as an antihero, she is still often deeply amoral and hurts the people around her. We also think this is mislabeled as a neo-noir, when the “search” for the sister doesn’t start until the last few pages of the book. That said, it is still rare to see a bi lead in the modern mystery genre.
In an interview with Full Stop, Madievsky discussed her love of writing explicit sex scenes and the importance of representing queer sexuality in literature. She explained how sex scenes can captivate readers while exploring the contrast between unhealthy and fulfilling relationships. Madievsky also emphasized that depicting queer sex is inherently political in a culture that often stigmatizes sexuality, particularly amid growing hostility toward LGBTQ communities. While she doesn’t consider it activism, she sees value in portraying experiences others might find uncomfortable or controversial.
All-Night Pharmacy was a success for Madievsky. It reached the USA Today national bestseller list, was chosen as an Indie Best Pick, and was named a best or most anticipated book of 2023 by luminary publications such as NPR, Los Angeles Times, Vanity Fair, and Vogue. It was also a finalist for 2023’s Lambda Literary Awards for Best Bisexual Fiction.
Though All-Night Pharmacy is a tough read, it follows the David Lynch-esque odyssey of the bi narrator through a family disappearance and ultimately finds herself, making it a rare entry with a bi lead in modern noir. And, as such, it deserves recognition and consideration for its place in modern detective fiction.