Description: Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema. The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina's relationship with her obsessive best-friend, and a shy young man from her local supermarket who has attracted her attention.
Brief description:
Eliza Clark is the author of Boy Parts and Penance. Boy Parts was Blackwell's 2020 Fiction Book of the Year and was later adapted for the stage. In 2022, Eliza was chosen as a finalist for the Women's Prize Futures Award for writers under thirty-five and in 2023, was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. She also writes for film and television. She lives in London.
Review Quotes:
"Eliza Clark is unflinching in this witty and shocking excavation of female rage and desire, and is sure to gain a cultish following. It is unlike anything I've read before, and it left me utterly invigorated and repulsed." - Elizabeth MacNeal, author of The Doll Factory
"Boundaries are for breaking and if anyone can crash through and reinterpret the fear of our time, Eliza Clark can." - MsLexia
"Even at its most transgressive, it all feels effortless. Dark, funny, bold, it's an exceptional debut." - The Skinny
"An impressive, fiercely current debut . . . delightful and addictive." - i News
"[Clark's] writing embraces the socially unacceptable, and wryly explores themes of gender, power and violence." - Granta Best of Young British Novelists 2023
"A mischievous satire narrated by a predatory photographer whose images of her male victims are hailed at a hip London gallery as edgy roleplay." - The Observer
"It's delightfully and deviously rooted in the now with its delectable internet and culture references and evocative and real-feeling portrait of women." - Dazed Digital
"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." - Vice
"Explores the darkest corners of artistic practice, sexuality and violence with bold wit and fearlessness. A dazzling, horrifying debut." - Irish Times
"Hallucinogenic, electric and sharp, Boy Parts is a whirlwind exploration of gender, class and power. In funny, acerbic prose, Clark shows us how it feels to inhabit a body that moves through a world full of eyes. She illuminates the cracks that begin to appear when the subject turns voyeur and the violence inherent in the shatter." - Jessica Andrews, author of Saltwater
"Boy Parts is a carnival funhouse ride-terrifying, feverish, hilarious. Clark has created a wholly original monster and a sickeningly compulsive novel. I absolutely inhaled this book." - Julia Armfield, author of Salt Slow
"Smart, stylish and very funny, Boy Parts is a gripping and unflinching exploration of female desire, narcissism, sexuality and rage. You won't want to put it down." - Lara Williams, author of Supper Club
"Will make most readers howl with laughter and/or shut their eyes in horror." - The Guardian
"The main protagonist will prove to be one of the most alluring, infuriating, and complex characters in modern British literature." - Niall Griffiths