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Penance: From the author of BOY PARTS

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TW: Do you think a social media platform like Tumblr actually helps radicalise young people, and drive them to commit real acts of violence, as it does in Penance ? it explores the true crime industrial complex, the ethics of consuming true crime as entertainment, early tumblr fandoms that were nurtured and followed like religion, internet radicalisation, bullying, small town lore and politics, and the living hell that is teenage girlhood.

Luckily for me, Rachel Monroe’s Savage Appetites came out halfway through when I was writing, and it ended up being very influential on me because I was not quite sure what I wanted to do with Dolly at the end of the book. EC: My two main inspirations were the Shanda Sharer murder which happened in the 90s in the States, which is probably the most direct comparison [In 1992, 12-year-old Shanda Sharer was tortured and burned to death by a group of older teenage girls]. Eliza Clark: I think irony-posting and irony-poisoned internet use are really interesting social features. It links back to this idea of ‘corrupted play’: Ikuya Satō in his book Kamikaze Biker looked at teenage biker gangs in Tokyo, and he talked about this idea of corrupted play, where you go from being a teenage boy roleplaying as the kind of person who could rob someone at knifepoint to eventually becoming someone who robs someone at knifepoint.You really had to be there to understand just how strange this time was for so many teenagers growing up in a time of mass political disarray, climate change, social unrest, and the simultaneous rapid growth of the internet. For them and for Angelica, another social pariah, the allure of internet stories lies in that distortion of the line between fiction and reality. It also depicts going to a bog standard British school very well, especially in terms of how different kinds of outsiders function and how difficult it can be for the "misfits" to actually get along when all they have in common is being different (Jayde's story in particular felt packed full of elements straight out of an actual school from that time, like assumptions about your family, being seen as one of the only gay teenagers, and being into sports but not in a cool way).

I am so excited to even hear about Penance, but once I heard the premise and structure, I was fizzing with anticipation. Penance is a bravura exercise in mimicry, pitch-perfect whether it’s ventriloquising journalism (“Confessions were quick, but the story was messy. Immediately gripping and also forcing you to question why that is, Penance is both a highly entertaining read and a book that poses a lot of questions, not all answered. I really appreciate those stories and those journalists that don’t necessarily seek to stick a neat conclusion on it. Placed on sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a fashionable London gallery, promising to revive her career in the art world and offering an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema.To its many fans Boy Parts was a taboo-busting examination of gender politics and the paradoxical effects of trauma.

Carelli is publishing his book about this murder, the apparent definitive account based on staying in the town, interviewing those connected to the victim and perpetrators, and getting an insight into their lives and social media accounts. It was complete when, a few months ago, Granta magazine named the 29-year-old author one of the UK’s best 20 novelists under the age of 40. More impressive still, the murder feels like it could only have happened in that way in Crow-on-Sea, the history, lore and social makeup of which are laid out with precision and believability. but I found that when I was trying to ape the true crime, nonfiction voice, it just sounded so pompous and self-important.So much for Penance’s narrator; but what of its reader, engrossed by his uncannily realistic account of human misery? When Eliza Clark’s debut novel came out with an indie publisher in 2020, nobody imagined that her second would be among the most eagerly awaited of 2023. I haven’t read the script yet, I think they’re still in the process of putting it together, but I know it’s going to be a one-woman show and they’re going to draw mostly from the book.

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