Albertine Clarke's debut novel, The Body Builders, offers a vivid and unsettling portrayal of a young woman's descent into mental illness and her tentative steps toward recovery. The story follows Ada, a 26-year-old narrator adrift in London, who spends her days swimming in her apartment's basement pool and hiding from the world. As she teeters on the edge of a psychological collapse, the novel explores themes of identity, dissociation, and the construction of self.
Ada's childhood in the Norfolk marshes is marked by episodes of dissociation and ontological insecurity, including auditory and visual hallucinations. She imagines a voice on the radio predicting her parents' divorce, a voice that follows her into adulthood. The novel's title refers to her father, an IT technician obsessed with bodybuilding, who is expelled from the family home. This obsession with physical transformation mirrors Ada's own fragmented sense of self.
Ada's life takes a turn when she meets Atticus, an older American writer, by the pool. Despite her discomfort with his male gaze, they develop a connection, but Atticus returns to California before they become intimate. In his absence, Ada becomes convinced they are telepathically linked. Her mental state deteriorates further as she navigates relationships with her troubled cousin and a young admirer, Patrick, who remains oblivious to her inner turmoil.
The novel's most striking section depicts a disastrous holiday to Naxos with Ada's estranged mother, where her behaviour escalates dramatically. She mutilates a mole on her shoulder, believing it to be a surveillance device. Her eventual breakdown lands her in a care facility, where she hallucinates a jungle room and a mysterious Polish man named Darrius. Through these hallucinations, Ada begins to exert control over her mental environment, a crucial step in her recovery.
Clarke's prose is clear and imaginative, drawing comparisons to Polanski's Repulsion and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. While it flirts with body horror and sad girl lit, The Body Builders stands as a forceful and promising debut from a talented new voice.
