In an essay on weightlifting, Kathy Acker describes the process of gradually building muscle as something that forces a confrontation with the limits of the body, “with chaos, with my own failure or a form of death”. What she describes would not be recognised by the unnamed protagonist of Anna Metcalfe’s Chrysalis, who takes up bodybuilding as a means of asserting control. The novel focuses on a period of transition as this young woman emerges from a difficult childhood and an abusive relationship. She quits her job, sculpts a beautiful and powerful body, eats clean, and develops her own meditation technique. Her skin takes on a hallowed but very literal glow. She starts to post videos and images of herself on social media and acquires a following. The videos, which are made for high-speed playback, show her statuesque body, surrounded by plants, often outdoors, holding itself exquisitely still for hours at a time.
Metcalfe has previously published short stories, and was recently named on Granta magazine’s Best of Young British Novelists list. Chrysalis, her first novel, is told across three narratives that describe her protagonist’s transformation from three distanced points of view. At the gym she meets Elliot, a lonely workaholic. She is increasingly estranged from her isolated mother, Bella. Susie, a former colleague, becomes her flatmate for a while. Elliot, Bella and Susie are all painfully vulnerable and chronically lonely. There is no framing device, no pretext for their telling us what they know about this woman, and the background is so lightly sketched that it feels neutralised. Elliot lives in an anonymous urban area, a poignant sunset skyline seen through the gym’s glass wall. Well into the story, this somewhat abruptly becomes Sheffield.
