On a trip out to Box Hill in Surrey on his eighteenth birthday in summer 1975, plump, insecure Colin trips over the cool, sophisticated biker Ray. Something prompts him to answer Ray's rhetorical "What am I going to do with you?" with "Anything you like," and before Colin knows quite what is happening, he's on the back of Ray's Norton, setting out on an unexpected new career as a sex-slave in the suburban hinterland of Hampton Court palace.

Although the relationship between Ray and Colin is clearly very unequal and exploitative, and it doesn't end happily, when it ends it does, counterintuitively, leave Colin more at ease with who he is and what he wants out of life. He is in a position to build a new, happy life for himself. This in contrast to Colin's father, whose similarly dependent relationship with Colin's mother drives him into a spiral of mental breakdown.

Fun because of all the nice period detail about bikers and sex in the seventies, before everyone got hung up on motorcycle safety and AIDS, but the plot felt a bit facile. ( )

Basically a downer about a relationship between a biker fanboy and a biker. I enjoyed it enough to finish it. It's a depressing character study about someone with no self esteem who gets into what's basically an abusive relationship. Good times! ( )

Box Hill is a short novel, reflecting on a relationship long in the past but still very meaningful to the narrator Colin. I’d hesitate to call this a love story because it isn’t an equal relationship but it is a story about relationships of unequal standing.

It’s Colin’s eighteenth birthday as the book opens, and he’s gone to Box Hill to check out the bikes. A spot for bikers to congregate, Colin knows that it’s not really his place (being overweight and only in possession of a cheap leather jacket and restrained flares) but he fantasises about the leathers and the bikes. He’s wandering when he trips over a man, Ray. Ray is a biker from top to toe in leathers and a motorbike he takes intricate care for. Ray wakes up and propositions Colin, and they move in together that evening. From the very first evening, the reader gets the idea that this isn’t a normal relationship. Ray dominates Colin to the point of rape, yet Colin is transfixed by Ray and deeply in love. Ray is controlling, discarding Colin’s toiletries and never giving Colin a key to the flat (despite living together for six years). Colin is there as Ray’s trophy, a thing, to share with the other bikers. He’s an object and reflecting on this time, Colin realises that this relationship has dominated his future ones. How does it end? I won’t spoil it, but there is no closure which gives reason for Colin returning to his relationship with Ray over and over again.

The story is told by Colin in the first person, so the reader doesn’t ever get to know Ray’s feelings or intent. Colin clearly has insecurities about his looks and intelligence and repeatedly tells the reader how grateful he is for Ray. Unfortunately, that’s another reason for poor Colin to cop the physical and mental abuse from Ray. An interesting parallel to Colin and Ray’s relationship is that of Colin’s parents. His father becomes incredibly clingy and worried without his wife, to the point where she can’t leave the room without telling him where she’s going. Another form of abuse or dementia? It’s interesting that both Colin and his mum are used by others for security and sex.

Mars-Jones writes Colin incredibly well, to the point where it feels like reading an autobiography. It’s honest and unflinching, no matter what the topic. I raced through this.

Thank you to Scribe for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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