There's a soft part of your brain. A place where you're still just a child. Once someone's poked the soft spot, the dent doesn't go away. Like sticking your fingers in wet concrete.
I catch my reflection in the wing mirror. There she is, with her smudged eyeliner and her messy hair, the tracks of her hair extensions on display, lipstick on the tip of her nose and her chin. She's wet concrete gone hard, full of dents, reshaped into this *thing*, which burps and pisses and has to be washed and fed and fucked.
I look in the mirror and think: who the fuck is that? Who is she?
i borrowed a couple of books from my housemate before (in particular nora awad's "bunny"). the other day she left for a week (or five, you never know with her) and handed me five other books she thinks i might like. which is an incredibly confident move, but i accept it enthusiastically.
this one is the first out of five. (actually she also recommended me "my year of rest and relaxation", but another housemate handed me their copy, isn't it great to have 20 housemates?)
this is yet another story narrated by an alienated creative youth. this time we're following Irina Sturges, a photographer who studied at CSM and RCA (a big fucking deal), but had to move back to Newcastle. the bitch is crazy, she is mean and manipulative, she starves herself skinny, she goes through a gram of coke in 12 hours. i absolutely adore her. as i said previously in my post about "the boys" i love a psychologically broken character who doesn't hold back their anger and violent urges. i've been drawn to people like this in real life as well, until they unsurprisingly hurt me too. but i digress.
she carries around business cards and gives them to men she meets on her way: a suit on the bus with a dad bod, an effeminate bartender, a soft shorty behind a tesco counter. if they get back to her, she takes them to her garage studio and photographs them nude and submissive. occasionally she has to defend herself from them. often they should defend themselves from her but they want her just a bit too much to have any sense left.
it all goes downhill (as much downhill as it can go for such a person) once she is invited to exhibit in london. we discover her history through unpacking her creative archives, while she is making new work with Eddie from Tesco. with him she violates one of her only rules: don't touch the subject, don't get handsy.
it's a story of addiction to pain, of desire to be seen and recognised turning her inside out and leaving bloody streaks all over the country. i would definitely recommend it.
the only criticism i have now is that the author kind of drops Irina's friend's blogs as a narrative device half way through the book. i wish there were more of them.
otherwise i had an incredible time reading it. is it bad that it makes me horny? the last few pages coincided with friends setting up the soundsystem in the living room for tomorrow's party playing wavy dark ambient in tune to my body waving with the intensity of the resolution.
i love irina, i love this book, i love violence.
I look at the photos again, the ones I didn't delete. I look at his purple face, his bloody chin and nipple, his swollen cheeks. I wonder what the fuck I have to do for people to recognise me as a threat, you know? It's like... am I even doing this shit? Have I even fucking done anything?
Like, do I have to snap the wine bottle inside him to get him to stop sending me sad emails? Do I have to cut his nipple off for him to realise he should probably ring the police? Do I have to cave his head in with my camera, rather than hit him the once? Do I have to crash his car? Do I have to smash a glass over the head of every single man I come into contact with, just so I leave a fucking mark?
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