'Mark' is a blue word, like market; like murder. He likes it much better than 'victim', which appears to him as a feeble eggy shade, or even 'prey', with its nasty undertones of ecclesiastical purple, and distant reek of frankincense. [p. 112]
blueeyedboy is set in Malbry, in the working-class area of White City -- geographically near, but socially distant from, St Oswald's School for Boys, the setting for Harris' Gentlemen and Players and Different Class. Social class is very much a factor in this novel: 'BB' grows up in poverty, one of three sons of Gloria Green, who works as a cleaner, and a father who is out of the picture. When the novel opens, BB is in his forties and still living in his mother's house. Or, more accurately, living as 'blueeyedboy' on WebJournal, a blogging site curiously reminiscent of LiveJournal: 'Restricted entries for private enjoyment; public – well, for everyone else. On WeJay I can vent as I please, confess without fear of censure; be myself – or indeed, someone else – in a world where no one is quite what they seem...' [p. 19]. blueeyedboy holds court on a community called badguysrock, to a small but devout group of followers. He posts accounts of family tensions, childhood anguish, and even murder -- and then assures us that 'this is fic ... I never murdered anyone'. Some of the other members of badguysrock know BB in real life (or think they do): Albertine, whose identity is blurry for most of the novel, is one of the few individuals whom BB interacts with outside the blog.
BB was a sensitive child, flinching when Gloria punished his brothers, experiencing overwhelming synaesthesia: for him, smells evoke colours, sometimes to the point of nausea. He makes the acquaintance of Dr Peacock, who's researching synaesthesia: but then Dr Peacock's attention is drawn to a young blind girl, Emily White, who paints the colours that she 'sees' when she listens to music. Emily is a prodigy, but is she telling the truth? Or is she simply trying to please her artist mother and musician father?
As a former LiveJournal afficionada, I found BB's blogging incredibly nostalgic: as a Joanne Harris fan, I enjoyed the twists and turns of this story. As with her other Malbry novels, there are dark and unsettling elements: domestic abuse (Gloria is a monstrous mother), murder, manipulation... It's hard to like any of the characters, but one can certainly sympathise with them, and relate to the various ways in which they are trapped by circumstance.
BB turns up, I think, in Different Class: I had to go back and reread parts of that novel with fresh eyes after finishing blueeyedboy, because the events of this novel cast those scenes in a different (but wholly consistent) light.
Harris on the origins of blueeyedboy: "...I didn’t want to write, and spent far too much time online, hanging around various sites and searching out ever more ingenious ways of evading reality. Under a pseudonym, I made a number of online friends, wrote a great deal of fanfic, and began to take an increasing interest in the way people interact online, the communities they create and join, and the way they choose to portray themselves. I began to understand that the small communities that have always informed my writing also exist in the virtual world, with the same little cliques of insiders, outsiders, gossips, liars, exhibitionists and bullies as in the “real” world. I understood too, how emotionally dependent people can sometimes become on their virtual friends and their virtual communities, even though there can be no way of knowing how honest these avenues of communication really are." source.
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