#Gaslight Gatekeep Girlboss

Book Review: Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss – this phrase saw its origins in a Tumblr post in January of 2021 as a kind of play on the trite and empty ‘live, laugh, love’. Since then it has evolved into a meme and a discourse on buzzwords or capitalism or toxic femininity.

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss is not a compliment; rather it is meant with a healthy dose of irony. I understand this phrase to signify the rise of a new (and terrifying) female archetype. This is the woman that achieves her ‘girlboss’ status through abuse, manipulation, and inhiliaton of anyone that stands in their way. The anti-heroine of Eliza Clark’s brilliant debut ‘Boy Parts’ is the perfect encapsulation and exploration of this new phenomena.

Irina is a photographer that explores the ‘female gaze’ through fetish photography of young (sometimes too young) boys and men scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Irina is offered a retrospective in a London gallery show. This is an important opportunity that could see her reignite her budding artistic career and offers her an escape from her routine of drugs, alcohol and extreme cinema. This triggers a destructive spiral of obsession and violence. As Irina grapples with her dysfunctional relationships, sexual appetites, and her dark past - she begins to unravel. Losing sight of who or what she is. This book takes an unflinching look at female sexuality, violence, rage, and aggression.

A part of me is furious that this is Eliza Clark’s debut – it’s just so damn good. It packs a punch with a voice that feels authentic, unique and powerful. The writing is a window through which some serious and difficult subject matter is explored. Clark brilliantly spotlights the often-overlooked female rage. Irina is, to put it frankly, a cunt - she is predatory, violent, manipulative, abusive… the list goes on. She is gaslighting her obsessive ‘best friend’; leveraging control and power in the relationship with this girl she seems to abhor. She exploits the vulnerability of a sweet boy that catches her eye at the supermarket; emotionally, physically, and sexually abusing him. And that is just the beginning.

But Irina is strangely charismatic and strikingly beautiful. Her rage bubbles away for the first part of the book, with her aggressions being mostly emotional and underhanded. Things escalate to extreme violence, as they are wont to do. There is an air of Patrick Bateman (the titular character is Bret Easton Ellis’ ‘American Psycho’) only made so much more compelling in the form of a female lead. Her behavior defies her prescribed gender role. That along with her hyper femininity allows her to get away with depraved acts of abuse and violence. Others do not see her as a threat, even after assaulting a man with a knife during sex and photographing it and then admitting this loudly to anyone that will listen. Irina is someone to be feared, but she is not seen that way - not seen for the monster she really is. And if she were a man it would be undeniable.

There is a kind of desperation to be seen as something powerful, something to be feared, a threat - that resonated with me. As a woman I too have felt enraged by the futility I embody in the male dominated world of violent delights.

Clark brilliantly crafts a character and a narrative that is flawed and real, and also unknowable and otherworldly. And through this she delves into the world of taboo. She explores obsessive love, and narcissistic mothers, and male entitlement, and consent, and class, and so much more. This book is a fascinating, enthralling, and confronting journey. It is a gripping mystery that unravels itself just as Irina begins to unravel on the page.

This is book dares you to look. It demands your attention. I wish I had written it.