A review by sarahmatthews
Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

dark tense medium-paced

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Read on audio, performed by the author

Influx Press

Pub.2020 

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After reading a run of classics I was looking for something different and this certainly fit the bill!

Irina’s a bartender/artist from Newcastle who graduated with an MA from The Royal College of Art and is in an awkward phase where she’s partying but also wants to be taken seriously as an artist. Her chosen style of photography lands her in tricky situations as she scouts teenage boys and men to photograph. Talented, beautiful and manipulative, she uses her power to  persuade them to bend to her demands, with her explicit photos being bought by wealthy private collectors who’re into fetish art. She attracted praise as a student including a profile in Vice and has 1000s of Instagram followers who she couldn’t care less about.

We follow Irina as she prepares for a  group show in London; she’s looking through her archive for her best images and reminisces, resulting in some memories she’d prefer not to drag back into her consciousness.

I’m surprised I had the stomach for this book but that’s down to the clever writing which makes you weirdly relate to Irina. Her life just seems chaotic, details begin to be drip fed into the narrative and by that time you’re hooked!

There’s some great writing about the pretensions of art school students and feeling shunned as a ‘northern’ artist. And plenty of messy nights at house parties, with a cocktail of drink, drugs and vomiting.

In a similar way to the protagonist in I’m A Fan the author’s created a unique voice and pushes behaviour to the extreme. Just be warned that here these extremes include self harm, mental illness, sexual abuse and violence.

I was impressed how Eliza Clark explores a certain kind of modern art which is celebrated as edgy but which makes you wonder about consent and the twisted mind of the artist; playing with this in complex and surprising ways.