Boy Parts

Irina Sturges tends bar in Newcastle. At night she photographs the ordinary men she picks up around town, styling each one for an explicit portrait series that is entirely her own. A London gallery offers her a show. The chance to relaunch her stalled art career sends her back through her own archive.

Away from the camera, Irina turns that same attention on the people closest to her. She reads old blog posts from Flo, the ex she cannot let go of, and recruits Eddie, a nervous Tesco cashier, as her newest subject. Her grip on them both tightens as the show approaches. So does her drinking.

Written entirely in Irina's own voice, the novel is a tense, unglamorous character study. It never lets the reader settle on whether she is a victim, a predator, or both. Newcastle's bars and back rooms give it a gritty, unromantic backdrop, and the narration is never quite reliable.

Eliza Clark's first novel, published in 2020, was named Blackwell's fiction book of the year and shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction.