BOOK REVIEW: Boy Parts (2020) by Eliza Clark

Much is begrudged by Irina, the heroine of this book, and much is let slide. She drifts through obscurity and emotional prosperity which declines as the pages are turned. She was a promising art student who straddles the boundaries between the niche and the obscene only to find an obscene niche. Her erotic photographs which invert the male gaze and portray masculine fragility. The private sales of her artworks show that she is a success but there are far more sinister motivations to her method.

Eliza Clark, in her debut, deals with pathetic boys who pander and beg at the feet of the protagonist and in doing so a femme fatale is created. This femme fatale is unlike the traditional, she is no Ava Gardner in The Killers. Instead, Irina is not only sexy, destructive, and seductive but mean, inconsolable and murderous. Uncontrollable, she blunders through life abusing friends, family, and acquaintances (more often than not her models who fall head over heels in love with her.) Instead of a piano to lean on she leans on her camera. While Clark trumps gender tropes by exceling the strong female character prototype with one whose power and control comes from her own emotional sensitivity, it overshadows the other characters in the book who are swimming in anxiety, indecision, and hopelessness.

Clark’s book is a modern-day American Psycho but also borrows from Ellis’s earlier novel Rules of Attraction which details the drug abuse, sex and trivialities of young adults. What begins as an analysis of a tortured soul soon slips into a contemporary gangbanging of post-student culture. The party is still going on but the exists are slowly being boarded up. Dead-end jobs and failed creative ventures ensue but the drug use and alcohol consumption remain. The narrative is driven forward by the show that Irina is part of at a gallery in London. This allows Irina to hunt and prey on new models, have new dangerous adventures and also reminisce on old work allowing the reader into her past.

The book hangs somewhere between a psychological thriller and horror porn. I am more inclined to agree with the latter because the it is a representation of, and Irina’s actions are influenced by, the extreme cinema she watches. The book is frighteningly good and has you turning pages anxious to see what happens next. On the other hand, the book is caught up in the whirlwind of new media – pages full of texts between characters is, I admit, what happens in modern society but feels like a cheap trick to usher the book on. Flo, who is Irina’s closest thing to a friend, keeps a blog. These sections throughout are comical as they directly oppose Irina’s inner feelings and add a comedic break to an otherwise sinister story.

The book also touches on class divide, especially between the North East and the South. This is a prejudice which is handled smartly, and the author should be commended for brining a subject to light which isn’t discussed as much as it should.

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William Rotherforth

Writer at reviewsphere

W. D. Rotherforth was born in Castleford, a small Yorkshire mining town, he spent most of his days with his head in a book or kicking a football. He began writing age 14, it wasn’t until leaving home that he took it seriously. He studied in Sheffield for 4 years before moving to London and from London to Paris. Bartending to get by he writes articles about his passions (art, sports, film, music, and food) as well as poetry and short fiction. He aspires to earn money creatively and have as much free time as possible to tend his garden.

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