Eliza Clark |
Ultraviolence, Party Chat and Erotic Photography: The World of Eliza Clark’s ‘Boy Parts’
Irina Sturges is a gorgeous redhead with a scientifically perfect body, a dedicated skincare routine, and a penchant for films that were banned by the BBFC. After she’s attacked by a customer at her bar job (who turns out to be the mother of a boy she picked up on the bus and brought to her risqué photo studio – don’t tell her boss), she’s put on sabbatical. At the same time, her photography career gets an unexpected boost, and she’s invited to exhibit at a prestigious gallery in London. She’ll need new work for the event, so scouts male models everywhere she goes, casting them as the subjects of her camera’s interrogating, and often erotic gaze. But despite her togetherness on the surface, and her ruling status among her friends, Irina is also haunted by a memory – one that is constantly rearing its unwanted, reality-skewing head.
This is the intoxicating world of Boy Parts, the first novel by writer Eliza Clark. Exploring themes of femininity, art and sexuality, the novel is a funny and intensely readable spiral staircase down into the mind of a woman who wears a waist trainer under her clothes and who may or may not be a keen purveyor of ultra-violence. Described as “fiercely current”, and eliciting comparisons to novels like American Psycho and My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Clark’s book weaves in contemporary references to Call Me By Your Name and Ariana Grande songs alongside deadpan quips (“I watch an episode of Toddlers and Tiaras and a documentary about the Wests”), establishing Irina as a protagonist who is tangible, fleshed out and cackle-funny – even as everything around her seems to dissolve.
I recently caught up with Eliza Clark via Zoom for a wide-ranging interview, where we managed to cram in beauty norms and shite party chat alongside discussion of the new book.
VICE: First of all, congratulations on such a great first novel. How have you found the response?
Boy Parts has elicited some fun comparisons, like American Psycho. The main character in that novel and the ultra-violence of the plot were used by the author as a way to talk about capitalism and masculinity in the 1990s. Do you think you’re doing the same, with your protagonist Irina as a conduit for questions around contemporary femininity, and the way the self is posited as currency?
Throughout Boy Parts, we see Irina constantly tending to her appearance in meticulous detail, because ultimately that is where she derives her power. Why did you want to explore beauty standards in this way?
The novel is so rich, and while it has its main themes about gender, power, and control, there’s also a lot of other stuff going on. One of the points you make is about London-centricity and the arts. During the pandemic, I think we’re all thinking about how actually, the creative industries don’t need to be centred in London at all, and how they’d be better if they weren’t. That’s a sentiment that your novel obviously and rightfully shares – can you speak on it a bit?
The problems that are in the arts exist all over the country, but there’s a real sense that there’s nothing there for you, and if you do manage to get something, you are extremely lucky and you have to grab onto it. Particularly in Newcastle, it feels like people move through the same few organisations. It doesn’t feel like that in London, but there’s a culture shock when you first move down. Loads of people are super middle-class and super connected, and they’ve got no idea how connected they are, and what a huge difference that makes. I knew somebody tangentially at uni whose dad was a BAFTA-winning film editor, and if you even so much as suggested they pass over your CV to their dad, they were like, “I feel very used.” And it’s just like, “Come on!” People don’t seem to have any sense of how great of a privilege that is, or how unique it is to be connected in that way outside of the south east, and it’s very frustrating.
The novel feels very lived-in. Everything from the descriptions of the parties to the text messages felt like things I had reference points for in my own life. How much of your experience is in Boy Parts?
Your house party scene is so accurate, and I feel like you very rarely see a decent or realistic representation of that.
I totally agree. The only other thing I’ve seen that I felt was super accurate was like, have you watched any of Limmy’s Show? You know the “Party Chat” sketch? Originally, the party scene was a lot more like that. The first person that read it was like, “This is very accurate but it’s very boring.”
Another comparison I made when I was reading the book was with Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The protagonists of both are very comically mean-spirited, in a way that almost makes you feel bad for laughing along (they also both have horrible moms!) What’s the appeal of writing a bitch?
The novel obviously has an ambiguous ending, and throughout we’re not sure whether Irina has actually done the violent things she talks about. What do you hope readers take away from that ambiguity, and why did you want there to be that question mark?
What is next for you? Can we expect more writing soon?
I have another book out with Influx [the publisher of Boy Parts] in 2022, so there should be a book then – my attention span and hopefully-not-flukey ability to write more than one book permitting! I have already changed my mind once on what that second book was going to be, so I’m just not telling people.
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