Albertine Clarke The Body Builders

Annotation

Ada lives a solitary life in London. A young adult haunted by her lonely childhood, she spends her days swimming, occasionally visiting her cousin, meeting people for drinks, ignoring invitations. When she meets a man named Atticus by the pool, Ada immediately senses an intimate connection between them, as if they share a life in a way she can't explain. Little by little, Ada's estrangement from all that is familiar to her widens, as though she is seeing her reflection through a mirror, pieces of it falling away. She worries she may be losing her mind. Eventually, Ada's attachment to the world and her body itself fails completely. She is jolted into a new, artificial environment - The Facility - apparently created and designed just for her. When a person's life is inherently one of isolation, are our connections with those around us merely projections of ourselves? And if not, where do they come from? With precision, subtlety, and confidence Albertine Clarke transforms the speculative into an entirely singular experience of deep interiority. The Body Builders lands like a blow, widening a crack that allows us to perceive the world differently than we ever imagined.