Those experiences, visible in Boy Parts, made Clark crave a nine-to-five office job. Applying to local arts organisations led her to the writing development agency New Writing North, which encouraged her to try for its mentorship scheme; next came stints at Mslexia, the magazine for female writers, and the writing charity Arvon. Clark credits that CV with showing her how precarious and rejection-laden writing can be; it meant she entered the industry under no illusions. Yet her goal was always to write full-time and buy a flat – which made it a “no-brainer”, she says, to quit Influx for more money at her current publisher, Faber, despite her gratitude to them for giving Boy Parts a platform. Stanford, Eleanor (21 September 2023). "A 'Really Online' Writer Looks Beyond the Internet"– via NYTimes.com.

Instead of English, she studied art, first in Newcastle then in London. No good at drawing – or so she felt – and “too shy” (unlike the narrator of Boy Parts) to ask people to pose for photos, she found that what she most enjoyed was writing a dissertation on how Michel Foucault’s ideas of surveillance play out in the online era. By day, she sold posh undies at Agent Provocateur, having previously worked in bars. Returning home on graduation meant pulling pints again (“there’s not a lot of luxury retail where I’m from”), but this time she wasn’t able to blag a drink on shift – a perk she’d enjoyed in London – and the bouncers were useless: “I’d be dead sober, there’d be a man sexually harassing me and my manager would be like, ‘Well, he’s a paying customer.’” Co-produced by Metal Rabbit, the play will run at Soho theatre, a venue with a history of solo shows about “messy” female protagonists, such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and Liz Kingsman’s One-Woman Show. Greer feels that Boy Parts will be a way of “moving the dial forwards”. No matter how good she may be,” adds Greer, “she just can’t outrun other people’s perceptions of her.” For Joyce, Irina is “somebody doing absolutely everything they can to be taken seriously”; her frustrations in this respect are relatable, even as her behaviour becomes increasingly unhinged. Irina’s expression of both her sexual and creative desire stands out: “We don’t often see or encounter women who feel free to express that they like sex in this way,” Joyce says.For Greer, a key part of the novel’s appeal is the way Irina’s volatility and her photography are intertwined. “She wants her art to be evidence of her power, evidence of her threat. Her work is a way of proving to the world what she is capable of doing.” However, says Greer, Clark also shows how easily her work gets swallowed by “the machine of capitalism and the patriarchy of the art world”. In a New York Times interview in 2023, she spoke about being "really online", [6] later telling The Independent that "the internet has been such a big part of my life but it’s taken years of work to disengage from it, and realise that it was actually a really negative influence". [7] one of ten recipients of the Women’s Prize x Good Housekeeping Futures authors, identified as one of "the most promising female authors under the age of 35 and under who are exciting, boundary-changing, and inspirational". [4] O'Neill, Lauren (5 August 2020). "Ultraviolence, Party Chat and Erotic Photography: The World of Eliza Clark's 'Boy Parts' ".

Arbuthnot, Leaf (23 June 2023). "Three schoolgirls torture and kill a fourth – but that's not the whole story"– via www.telegraph.co.uk. Abuse in the fashion and art industry is rife, with countless stories of predatory photographers luring young men and women into their ‘studios’ where they are asked to undress and then the unthinkable happens. Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts is an electrifying look at the relationship between photographer and subject, which turns the more typical gender and power dynamic on its head and in doing so asks some fundamentally feminist questions about sex, gender and power. a b Ashby, Chloë (22 July 2020). "Eliza Clark: 'I'm from Newcastle and working class. To publishers, I'm diverse' "– via The Guardian. The three years Penance took to write were, she says, akin to pulling teeth, unlike the pleasure she got from Boy Parts, a mischievous satire narrated by a predatory photographer whose images of her male victims are hailed at a hip London gallery as edgy roleplay. “People who’ve read it maybe think I’ll be more of a wind-up merchant when they meet me, but I’ve got more of a primary school teacher energy than an enfant terrible vibe,” Clark says.She had a short story She's Always Hungry published with Granta in 2023. [14] Awards and grants [ edit ] Cummins, Anthony (24 June 2023). "Eliza Clark: 'I'm more primary school teacher than enfant terrible' "– via The Guardian. How far can you go in the name of art? For Irina, nothing is off-limits. She’s a photographer who takes pictures of young men, with a particular preference for guys that are unprepossessing, shy and biddable. Irina’s “thing” is capturing male vulnerability, so she photographs her subjects in compromising poses; she takes liberties with consent, and violates their dignity in increasingly troubling and violent ways. The American Psycho comparison is apt in many ways, one being that Irina can get off scot-free because she’s hot. “People always conflate beauty with goodness … I can just cry a bit, talk like I’m daft, tease my hair up like a televangelist,” she scoffs. Clark is interested in the way people treat others better when they are dressed nicely or are conventionally good-looking, and how that manifests, “even casual things like getting free stuff at Pret”.

Have her parents read it? “They have not,” says Clark. One, because it’s so explicit and she feels grossed out by the thought of their doing so. And two, she’s worried they will think she based Irina’s parents on them. “Her mum’s this absurd harpy and her dad’s this weird, spineless, Freudian … and my parents aren’t like that! I suppose I’m going to have to let them at some point. It’s just, as far as my parents are aware, I’ve never had sex, I’ve never taken drugs, and I definitely don’t know what the member of a man looks like.”

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Aimée Kelly plays the role with a winning blend of caustic humor and narcissistic self-pity: She’s highly strung, manipulative and insecure. By modulating her voice and posture, Kelly also plays various other characters, including Flo — Irina’s best friend, whose almost canine devotion is rewarded with casual contempt — and a succession of hapless young men, portrayed a sympathetic, slouchy charm. Irina’s motivations are both aesthetic and political: She idolizes the filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini — the director of the infamously graphic feature “Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom” — and wants to subvert the traditional power dynamics of objectification in the visual arts, by putting men on the receiving end of a violating gaze. Irina is the antiheroine of “Boy Parts,” adapted from Eliza Clark’s 2020 debut novel of the same name, and running at the Soho Theater, in London, through Nov. 25. It’s an engrossing and darkly funny one-woman show, but doesn’t quite make the best of its provocative premise.

Do you know what happened already?Did you know her?Did you see it on the internet?Did you listen to a podcast?Did the hosts make jokes?But the format has its limitations. Toward the end of the show, there is a climactic scene in a gallery where Irina exhibits the photographs we’ve been watching her create. It’s an event that can make or break her career, and the place is meant to be teeming with people, but Kelly’s aloneness on the stage feels too palpable. Moreover, the production is poorly paced, and the gallery scene feels rushed, which exacerbates a sense of anticlimax. After all that leisurely buildup, the play’s momentum fizzles out in a matter of minutes.