By Eliza Clark
I read this in a few days at the end of April, 2025.
My god. Horrifying and fascinating and absolutely filthy. it’s about a photographer from Newcastle who’s invited to show her work in a London exhibition. Her specialty is boys: slim, soft, curly-haired, whom she scouts and invites to her ~garage~ studio, where she strips them and takes increasingly explicit, fetishistic, and sometimes violent photos. The book follows her descent into a frantic, terrifying, muted mania, in her desperation to leave a mark on the world, interspersed with flashbacks about how she got here, and what she did to one particular boy, years ago.
I thought it actually mirrors American Psycho really well? Both characters commit increasingly violent and unhinged acts, and both are ignored when they confess outright; both reel at how they seem unable to leave a mark on the world, how no-one (relevant) reacts to them. This one is less brutally violent, but it’s just as dark, with constant themes of desire, assault, and abuse.
I really liked it. Normally in books I can’t resist finding bits of myself in different characters, wondering what I’d do in those situations, and this book did Not invite that at all. Of course, I related to her victims more than to her, but neither are particularly flattering. It thoroughly resisted attempts at projecting morality: her actions are utterly despicable, despite what she endures herself at the hands of her boys, and those around her are too steeped in a miasma of drugs, alcohol, dependence, and deprivation to help or care.
Vicious, vindictive, and violent. Fantastic.