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Box Hill
Box Hill is a sizzling, sometimes shocking, and strangely tragic love story between two men, set in the gay biker community of the late 1970s. Beautifully written, intimate, and profoundly affecting, Adam Mars-Jones's first novel in almost a decade is the winner of the 2019 Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize.
120 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2020
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December 23, 2020
3.5* and upgraded because I keep thinking about this short novel.
If in the last review I presented you Charco, I will now say a few words about what could become my favorite small press, Fitzcarraldo Editions. As their website states, they are “ an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays and focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language” They published two Nobel laureates, Svetlana Alexievich and Olga Tokarczuk and many other books that managed to win or be shortlisted for different important literature prizes. Box Hill, is the 3rd book I read published by them this year, the others being the brutal and extrardinary Hurricanes Season by Fernanda Melchor and The Other Name by Jon Fosse.
Box Hill is a new addition to the catalog and it is unlike anything else I’ve read before. It deals about a six year relationship between two gay men. I haven’t read much about gay men and their love life so I have no idea what is normal for them or not. However, for me this was not a love story, the relationship the narrator had with his partner was one of sexual submission and he let himself dominated in all aspects of their time spent together. The whole book the narrator did not realize he was in an abusive relationship, everything seemed normal for him and I was left wondering: Am i the only one who thinks this is not ok?
The full title of the book is Box Hill, a story of Low self Esteem and it fits very well with the story. In 1975, Colin, a plump, sexually confused boy decides to spend his 18th Birthday at Box Hill , a biker gathering spot. He stumbles over the feet of Ray, a handsome biker who immediately convinces our birthday boy to give him head. He then takes him to his house and this becomes the beginning of a strange, in my view damaging, relationship where one gives and the other one takes, only on his terms.
There is more to this book. Colin talks about his relationship with his parents, especially about his father change of character when his mother is hospitalized. Afraid he may die first, he becomes obsessed with not letting his wife out of his sight. The narration sometimes derails to some random thoughts on different subjects but I kind of enjoyed them.
I will end with a bit of warning. It contains explicit details of gay submission/domination sex.
If in the last review I presented you Charco, I will now say a few words about what could become my favorite small press, Fitzcarraldo Editions. As their website states, they are “ an independent publisher specialising in contemporary fiction and long-form essays and focuses on ambitious, imaginative and innovative writing, both in translation and in the English language” They published two Nobel laureates, Svetlana Alexievich and Olga Tokarczuk and many other books that managed to win or be shortlisted for different important literature prizes. Box Hill, is the 3rd book I read published by them this year, the others being the brutal and extrardinary Hurricanes Season by Fernanda Melchor and The Other Name by Jon Fosse.
Box Hill is a new addition to the catalog and it is unlike anything else I’ve read before. It deals about a six year relationship between two gay men. I haven’t read much about gay men and their love life so I have no idea what is normal for them or not. However, for me this was not a love story, the relationship the narrator had with his partner was one of sexual submission and he let himself dominated in all aspects of their time spent together. The whole book the narrator did not realize he was in an abusive relationship, everything seemed normal for him and I was left wondering: Am i the only one who thinks this is not ok?
The full title of the book is Box Hill, a story of Low self Esteem and it fits very well with the story. In 1975, Colin, a plump, sexually confused boy decides to spend his 18th Birthday at Box Hill , a biker gathering spot. He stumbles over the feet of Ray, a handsome biker who immediately convinces our birthday boy to give him head. He then takes him to his house and this becomes the beginning of a strange, in my view damaging, relationship where one gives and the other one takes, only on his terms.
There is more to this book. Colin talks about his relationship with his parents, especially about his father change of character when his mother is hospitalized. Afraid he may die first, he becomes obsessed with not letting his wife out of his sight. The narration sometimes derails to some random thoughts on different subjects but I kind of enjoyed them.
I will end with a bit of warning. It contains explicit details of gay submission/domination sex.
October 5, 2025
Now steamily reworked into Pillion with Alexander Skarsgård, Harry Melling, gym singlets and shopping lists featuring buttplugs.
A slim work that explores a lot: dominance and submission in relationships, low self-esteem and loss.
That if I was good enough for him, then unlikely as it might seem, I must be good enough for me.
Adam Mars-Jones is a master of conversational characters. This time Colin relates how on his 18th birthday he meets Ray, a biker who takes not just his virginity but also the next 6 years of his life. An uncomfortable narrative, but without judgement.
The low self esteem of the narrator is very evident, and submission and a fetish for leather don't feel that off based on how the first part of Box Hill is told.
Slowly we get more glimpses of how violent and unequal the relation he and Ray have really is, epitomised quite early on in this thought:
Just my luck, he’s going to strangle me without going to the trouble of raping me first, which shows that I wasn’t really worried.
In some kind of manner we are not asked to judge Colin as sad or deviant, even though he confides things like: If I’d been told before it happened that I would be blindfolded the day I lost my virginity, I would have had one of my panics to the reader.
It didn’t matter that our ways weren’t regular, as long as we were regular in our ways he mentions, and there is some tenderness, care and stability in the way Ray treats him. That the narrator his family went through upheaval with a sick mother and a deteriorating father is also a factor in this. I even would observe that the story as told through the mother her eyes would have been more interesting in a sense, since the helplessness to "save" someone from his tendencies of submission (with Colin even later in his life thinking: As if a man is only a man if he takes no notice of me.) in his young, entire life would have created more tension than the more elegiac first hand account Colin offers us.
His parents descending into dependency and servitude towards each other is definitely something I would have liked to read more about.
But I could never have loved someone who was only ever good to me already symbolises a tragic end to the relationship, and the demons haunting Ray are only glimpsed at. It is remarkable how little Colin knows about him, even if he is the man that made him cut his hair, make him sleep on the floor, make him service other men in semi-public and lick his boot.
Ray is maybe a bit too enigmatic, with Colin being closed out of his house, without a key, how can one know so little after living together 6 years? What kind of trauma is there? Erasure by relatives seems to signal something interesting to tell.
Also the shining of light on jealousy, and the cult of muscled, fit, masculine or skinny and young men is something that I don't see examined much in literary fiction.
The ending of the book kind of peters out in a disappointing way but overal I found this a thought provoking book on what a first relationship can do to shape the rest of the trajectory of a life and what a seemingly consensual yet unequal bond might mean.
A slim work that explores a lot: dominance and submission in relationships, low self-esteem and loss.
That if I was good enough for him, then unlikely as it might seem, I must be good enough for me.
Adam Mars-Jones is a master of conversational characters. This time Colin relates how on his 18th birthday he meets Ray, a biker who takes not just his virginity but also the next 6 years of his life. An uncomfortable narrative, but without judgement.
The low self esteem of the narrator is very evident, and submission and a fetish for leather don't feel that off based on how the first part of Box Hill is told.
Slowly we get more glimpses of how violent and unequal the relation he and Ray have really is, epitomised quite early on in this thought:
Just my luck, he’s going to strangle me without going to the trouble of raping me first, which shows that I wasn’t really worried.
In some kind of manner we are not asked to judge Colin as sad or deviant, even though he confides things like: If I’d been told before it happened that I would be blindfolded the day I lost my virginity, I would have had one of my panics to the reader.
It didn’t matter that our ways weren’t regular, as long as we were regular in our ways he mentions, and there is some tenderness, care and stability in the way Ray treats him. That the narrator his family went through upheaval with a sick mother and a deteriorating father is also a factor in this. I even would observe that the story as told through the mother her eyes would have been more interesting in a sense, since the helplessness to "save" someone from his tendencies of submission (with Colin even later in his life thinking: As if a man is only a man if he takes no notice of me.) in his young, entire life would have created more tension than the more elegiac first hand account Colin offers us.
His parents descending into dependency and servitude towards each other is definitely something I would have liked to read more about.
But I could never have loved someone who was only ever good to me already symbolises a tragic end to the relationship, and the demons haunting Ray are only glimpsed at. It is remarkable how little Colin knows about him, even if he is the man that made him cut his hair, make him sleep on the floor, make him service other men in semi-public and lick his boot.
Ray is maybe a bit too enigmatic, with Colin being closed out of his house, without a key, how can one know so little after living together 6 years? What kind of trauma is there? Erasure by relatives seems to signal something interesting to tell.
Also the shining of light on jealousy, and the cult of muscled, fit, masculine or skinny and young men is something that I don't see examined much in literary fiction.
The ending of the book kind of peters out in a disappointing way but overal I found this a thought provoking book on what a first relationship can do to shape the rest of the trajectory of a life and what a seemingly consensual yet unequal bond might mean.
August 6, 2023
Okay this book was so messy and unenjoyable, I’m crying and shaking and not in a good way. I just don’t like how so many novels about gay men are about gay men in unhealthy, abusive relationships in which the abuse remains unaddressed?? This novel features a young gay man who falls into an obsessive relationship with a man ten years older than him. Aside from the general unhealthiness of their relationship, there’s one scene where the older man sexually assaults the younger man and the repercussions of that assault are never really contended with throughout the whole book. Also, the young gay male protagonist is described as “chubby” and the novel definitely contains at least one scene where a thinner physique is glorified – again, this fatphobia is never written about in a way that indicates growth, unlearning internalized fatphobia, etc.
I guess I’ll give this book two stars for the gay representation but even that feels amiss because I question whether representation like this is better than no representation at all (not a question worth exploring because there is indeed better gay representation out there.)
I guess I’ll give this book two stars for the gay representation but even that feels amiss because I question whether representation like this is better than no representation at all (not a question worth exploring because there is indeed better gay representation out there.)
March 20, 2022
Truly the cruelest thing I’ve read this side of the Marquis de Sade. The soul crushing humiliation narrator Colin encounters takes the breath away. Someone here said that Mars-Jones was depathologizing BDSM. What? Moreover, after Colin’s debasement, which he apparently finds unremarkable, I lost all confidence in him as a narrator and stopped reading with only ten pages to go. No doubt why the book is subtitled: A Story of Low Self-Esteem. How can one sustain interest in a narrator so lacking in self-respect? Four golden projectile vomits.
February 27, 2020
Box Hill is a short, conversational novella charting the relationship between teenage Colin and an enigmatic older man, Ray, whom he meets at the Surrey landmark (and popular biker hangout) of the title. They meet on Colin's 18th birthday; Ray moves Colin into his flat that day. They begin a sadomasochistic relationship, one Colin enters into unwittingly, with a kind of naive, stunned, yet accepting bemusement about what's happening. And he never really leaves that state, spending years in the role of Ray's submissive – until tragedy strikes. This all takes place in the mid-to-late 1970s; in his narration, Colin is looking back on this important period of his life from an older vantage point, though being older doesn't necessarily mean he's gained the ability to see it objectively.
When I say it's 'conversational', I suppose what I'm getting at is the way it really feels like someone talking (/writing) about something that happened to them, and not like it's attempting to conform to a narrative template or present a satisfying arc. There is so much left unsaid here, yet there's so much heart in the writing. The way Colin talks about his parents made me want to cry. The way he understands his relationship with Ray, even as an adult, is full of holes; it's obvious he still finds it difficult to explain/justify the situation. This dynamic reminded me a lot of My Dark Vanessa – in both books, the central relationship is undoubtedly transformative for the narrator, and the power of its influence can't be denied; but it's also profoundly unequal and damaging, whether or not the subject is willing to admit it. Tellingly (and I'd forgotten about this until I flipped back through my copy after finishing it), the subtitle of Box Hill is 'A story of low self-esteem'.
Or I might have it completely wrong, I don't know. For all Colin's straightforwardness, Box Hill can be tricky: I'm unsure whether to judge the closing line as haunting or innocuous. Whatever you make of its 'meaning' (not that there has to be one), this story is related with a unique tenderness. The narration makes it.
I received an advance review copy of Box Hill from the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions.
TinyLetter
When I say it's 'conversational', I suppose what I'm getting at is the way it really feels like someone talking (/writing) about something that happened to them, and not like it's attempting to conform to a narrative template or present a satisfying arc. There is so much left unsaid here, yet there's so much heart in the writing. The way Colin talks about his parents made me want to cry. The way he understands his relationship with Ray, even as an adult, is full of holes; it's obvious he still finds it difficult to explain/justify the situation. This dynamic reminded me a lot of My Dark Vanessa – in both books, the central relationship is undoubtedly transformative for the narrator, and the power of its influence can't be denied; but it's also profoundly unequal and damaging, whether or not the subject is willing to admit it. Tellingly (and I'd forgotten about this until I flipped back through my copy after finishing it), the subtitle of Box Hill is 'A story of low self-esteem'.
Or I might have it completely wrong, I don't know. For all Colin's straightforwardness, Box Hill can be tricky: I'm unsure whether to judge the closing line as haunting or innocuous. Whatever you make of its 'meaning' (not that there has to be one), this story is related with a unique tenderness. The narration makes it.
I received an advance review copy of Box Hill from the publisher, Fitzcarraldo Editions.
TinyLetter
December 29, 2025
two very different sorts of novels come together to form a beautiful hybrid. Box Hill is a highly romanticized dream of a first love that somehow, amazingly, is married to a compassionate slice of life with endearing, sensitive psychological portraits of both its protagonist and its supporting characters. sub bottom Colin meets dom top Ray and Colin's parents don't have much to say about it, they're just happy he's happy. this is a gay bodice-ripper lacking that genre's overheated emotional hysterics and it's also a book of kitchen-sink realism à la Mike Leigh or Ken Loach. I haven't read a book of this sort since reading the very different but still similarly griffin-like The Story of Harold.
the writing is many things: chatty and casual, poetic and yearning, dry and humorous, dignified and gracious, occasionally graphic yet disinterested in providing fap material. Adam Mars-Jones is a talented and very subtle author. he makes storytelling seem easy; his ideas are nonetheless moving and profound.
his treatment of Colin's parents and their challenges with co-dependency are at the heart of this book's nonchalant tenderness. the understanding attention they receive, unvarnished but gentle, sweet but dry-eyed, made me fall in love a bit with the author. likewise the empathy given to Colin himself. I am attracted to kindness.
it's interesting to read some of the Goodreads reviews of this book, including from some of my usually more insightful GR friends. they rather missed the boat, I think, with their discombobulated, sometimes aghast focus on the BDSM nature of the central relationship. "truly the cruelest thing I've read"... "profoundly unequal and damaging"... "gay men in unhealthy, abusive relationships in which the abuse remains unaddressed"... *SWOOSH* you're not getting it! hard not to chuckle at such responses. gay men, gay and straight women, and I imagine not a few straight men, will fantasize about severely asymmetrical romantic relationships, doms and subs, cold and powerful men who find satisfaction in controlling their naive and emotional partners. the book details one such fantasy relationship.
back in my 20s, I often had such fantasies - from Ray's perspective, that is- and even had such relationships (brief ones). it was an appealing thing to me back then, the idea of a fully compartmentalized relationship with a younger fellow, eager to please, obeying my dictates, at my beck & call, and with very little tedious Q&A about it all, and certainly not about what was going on in my head. but then, of course, I grew past such fantasies... because they were fantasies. even the actual relationships I had of this sort were basically extended fantasy scenes, for both of us. they didn't last for months, let alone years. fantasies are by their very nature ephemeral. people grow up; adults who yearn for relationships eventually realize that such relationships must exist beyond neat fantasy compartments. life is not a bodice-ripper. your fantasy submissive will need to be taken care of when they're sick; your fantasy top, likewise. humans aren't built to live in fantasy boxes forever.
SPOILERS AHEAD
what makes this sublime novel a story of fictional romanticism, rather than a portrait of a real relationship, is all there in the shape and length of the relationship itself. Ray appears when Colin turns 18, literally on his birthday. he takes in the swooning lad, then takes his virginity as well and makes him his mate. a BDSM relationship enfolds that is mutually satisfying, one that no doubt appears abusive and damaging to normies, both straight and gay alike (and I don't have the interest nor the patience to explain such things to people who can't imagine such things). they are together for 7 years, Colin clearly happy all the while, and then Ray abruptly dies, off-page. it is both convenient and absolutely necessary to the fantasy that he dies.
Colin and Ray don't grow old together, they don't come to learn that stiff roles established at the start can melt over time as people get to know and understand each other; Colin and Ray don't get sick and need to be taken care of during those times of weakness; they don't care about each other's past histories or contexts... they are both fully happy in their roles because this is a fantastical version of a relationship. perhaps this is a fantasy because Colin is recounting it through his romanticized memories; perhaps the author intended it as a fantasia based on how the original, swooningly romantic story was relayed to him. doesn't make a difference either way: this is a time-limited fantasy romance that exists entirely due to its roles and its rules.
in this fantasy relationship, Colin sleeps on the floor at the foot of Ray's bed; the roles of sub and dom are kept carefully in place. in a real relationship, Colin and Ray would eventually cuddle from time to time in bed, as humans do; roles would break down in that space because roles break down when time and reality, and sleepiness, intrude. but then, this is not a book about a realistic relationship, one where rules will break down over time and roles will eventually shift and loosen; it's a carefully built fantasy about an all-encompassing first love, one that obliterates while still providing meaning. but we can let Colin have his fantasies! no need to pathologize the sweet lad. or the sweet man, dreaming of a lost, idealized, and of course doomed love affair. people need their fantasies.
the writing is many things: chatty and casual, poetic and yearning, dry and humorous, dignified and gracious, occasionally graphic yet disinterested in providing fap material. Adam Mars-Jones is a talented and very subtle author. he makes storytelling seem easy; his ideas are nonetheless moving and profound.
his treatment of Colin's parents and their challenges with co-dependency are at the heart of this book's nonchalant tenderness. the understanding attention they receive, unvarnished but gentle, sweet but dry-eyed, made me fall in love a bit with the author. likewise the empathy given to Colin himself. I am attracted to kindness.
it's interesting to read some of the Goodreads reviews of this book, including from some of my usually more insightful GR friends. they rather missed the boat, I think, with their discombobulated, sometimes aghast focus on the BDSM nature of the central relationship. "truly the cruelest thing I've read"... "profoundly unequal and damaging"... "gay men in unhealthy, abusive relationships in which the abuse remains unaddressed"... *SWOOSH* you're not getting it! hard not to chuckle at such responses. gay men, gay and straight women, and I imagine not a few straight men, will fantasize about severely asymmetrical romantic relationships, doms and subs, cold and powerful men who find satisfaction in controlling their naive and emotional partners. the book details one such fantasy relationship.
back in my 20s, I often had such fantasies - from Ray's perspective, that is- and even had such relationships (brief ones). it was an appealing thing to me back then, the idea of a fully compartmentalized relationship with a younger fellow, eager to please, obeying my dictates, at my beck & call, and with very little tedious Q&A about it all, and certainly not about what was going on in my head. but then, of course, I grew past such fantasies... because they were fantasies. even the actual relationships I had of this sort were basically extended fantasy scenes, for both of us. they didn't last for months, let alone years. fantasies are by their very nature ephemeral. people grow up; adults who yearn for relationships eventually realize that such relationships must exist beyond neat fantasy compartments. life is not a bodice-ripper. your fantasy submissive will need to be taken care of when they're sick; your fantasy top, likewise. humans aren't built to live in fantasy boxes forever.
SPOILERS AHEAD
what makes this sublime novel a story of fictional romanticism, rather than a portrait of a real relationship, is all there in the shape and length of the relationship itself. Ray appears when Colin turns 18, literally on his birthday. he takes in the swooning lad, then takes his virginity as well and makes him his mate. a BDSM relationship enfolds that is mutually satisfying, one that no doubt appears abusive and damaging to normies, both straight and gay alike (and I don't have the interest nor the patience to explain such things to people who can't imagine such things). they are together for 7 years, Colin clearly happy all the while, and then Ray abruptly dies, off-page. it is both convenient and absolutely necessary to the fantasy that he dies.
Colin and Ray don't grow old together, they don't come to learn that stiff roles established at the start can melt over time as people get to know and understand each other; Colin and Ray don't get sick and need to be taken care of during those times of weakness; they don't care about each other's past histories or contexts... they are both fully happy in their roles because this is a fantastical version of a relationship. perhaps this is a fantasy because Colin is recounting it through his romanticized memories; perhaps the author intended it as a fantasia based on how the original, swooningly romantic story was relayed to him. doesn't make a difference either way: this is a time-limited fantasy romance that exists entirely due to its roles and its rules.
in this fantasy relationship, Colin sleeps on the floor at the foot of Ray's bed; the roles of sub and dom are kept carefully in place. in a real relationship, Colin and Ray would eventually cuddle from time to time in bed, as humans do; roles would break down in that space because roles break down when time and reality, and sleepiness, intrude. but then, this is not a book about a realistic relationship, one where rules will break down over time and roles will eventually shift and loosen; it's a carefully built fantasy about an all-encompassing first love, one that obliterates while still providing meaning. but we can let Colin have his fantasies! no need to pathologize the sweet lad. or the sweet man, dreaming of a lost, idealized, and of course doomed love affair. people need their fantasies.
March 29, 2024
box hill was a very interesting read! i hadn't heard of it ahead of coming across it at the library, so i had no clue what to expect. it follows the narrator, colin on his 18th birthday when he meets a biker, ray, who is significantly older than him, in box hill. he has his first sexual experience with ray, goes home with him, and doesn't leave for 6 years. it describes their dominant/submissive relationship, while also revealing the biker's secret poker group, where some questionable things take place. i really really enjoyed colin as the narrator, the writing style and the setting!
i couldn't really figure out how the author meant for the reader to feel while reading this, especially about ray and colin's relationship. i interpreted it similarly to the concept in 'my dark vanessa', where the narrator is reflecting on a past inappropriate relationship where they were being taken advantage of. when reading reviews after i finished the book, i found mixed interpretations, some people thought it shed light on sub/dom relationships in a positive way, as they are often looked upon with shame. others found the narrator frustrating and hard to sympthize with, which is to be expected as the extended title is box hill: a story of low self-esteem. overall, my conclusion was that it was an incredibly thought-provoking book, and shed light on situations that aren't often discussed in literature. i also found this interview with the author, adam mars-jones really really good to watch after finishing the book, and i highly recommend checking it out regardless of if you're going to read it. https://youtu.be/IzPHwEmTNAU it definitely helped me put together my thoughts after reading box hill!
i couldn't really figure out how the author meant for the reader to feel while reading this, especially about ray and colin's relationship. i interpreted it similarly to the concept in 'my dark vanessa', where the narrator is reflecting on a past inappropriate relationship where they were being taken advantage of. when reading reviews after i finished the book, i found mixed interpretations, some people thought it shed light on sub/dom relationships in a positive way, as they are often looked upon with shame. others found the narrator frustrating and hard to sympthize with, which is to be expected as the extended title is box hill: a story of low self-esteem. overall, my conclusion was that it was an incredibly thought-provoking book, and shed light on situations that aren't often discussed in literature. i also found this interview with the author, adam mars-jones really really good to watch after finishing the book, and i highly recommend checking it out regardless of if you're going to read it. https://youtu.be/IzPHwEmTNAU it definitely helped me put together my thoughts after reading box hill!
February 24, 2020
To this day I can’t see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him
what comfort I can. To tell him it won’t always be like this
Adam Mars-Jones’s Box Hill, subtitled “a story of low self-esteem” was the winner of the second Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize in 2019. It opens in 1975 on Box Hill near to Dorking, but focused not so the area as a natural beauty spot but rather its other guise, as a haven for bikers:
Box Hill where the bikers go, on a Sunday. Box Hill near Leatherhead in Surrey – jewel of the North Downs, rising almost 400 feet sheer above the river (that’s the river Mole). A cliff densely covered with box and yew. It’s the steepness of the gradient means only box and yew can get a foothold. It could just as easily be called Yew Hill as Box Hill, except box trees are so much rarer.
Box is the heaviest European wood. It doesn’t float. The roots were traditionally used for knife handles. Box trees are poisonous, same as yews. Only camels will eat the leaves, not because they’re immune but because they’re stupid, they don’t know what they’re doing. Box trees are used for mazes because the foliage is so dense, and they can be trained all the way down to the ground. A maze isn’t much cop if you can lie down on your belly, see where you are and wriggle out of it.
The leaves of the box are ovate, entire, smooth, thick, coriaceous and dark green. I looked that up. It sounds like a poem you can’t quite get the sense out of.
At Box Hill there’s downland grazed by sheep. A rich chalk flora. Orchids for those who know them when they see them. It’s a beauty spot overrun one day a week by motorcyclists and their beautiful machines. Bikes that whine, bikes that roar.
The Sunday of my eighteenth birthday: 1975. I went to look at the bikes. Because life at home wasn’t much fun, just at that moment, with Mum in hospital and Dad being unlike himself. Because I was going to get a bike of my own, one day soon. Because I liked to look at the bikers. Because it was my birthday, and I didn’t need a reason.
Bikers on Box Hill circa 1981:
The novel is narrated, looking back from 1999 (the narration perhaps slightly overdoes the ‘back in those days’ type explanations), by Colin, now an autodidact. In 1975 he was eighteen, short (5ft 6) and, in his view, overweight and unattractive, confused sexually and with low self-esteem.
To this day I can't see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him what comfort I can. To tell him it won't always be like this.
He literally stumbles over the feet of Ray, an older (as best as I can work it out, he was in his late twenties), much taller (6ft 5) man, and leader of a small biker gang and poker club.
A brief, spontaneous, sexual encounter follows and Ray takes Colin home first for the night, then permanently, the two men living together for 6 years.
To the reader this isn’t a very symmetric love story. Their experience in bed that first night even Colin, looking back describes as rape, and in their years together, the submissive Colin attends the gang’s poker night as is expected to service any of the men.
Most strikingly, Colin learns almost nothing about Ray – he has no idea what he does for a living (Ray requires Colin to leave the house between 9 and 6 every weekday and never gives him a key), not even his surname, a conscious decision on Colin's behalf - he's no fan of the "Mrs Bluebeard" approach.
It’s a mistake to think friends need to know everything about each other.
Ray is a memorably drawn character, fastidious, but only on his own terms and philosophy, no-one else’s. Looking back Colin ponders on how Ray would have dealt with Aids:
I don't know what Ray would have done when the Aids came along. Anyone who told him what to do was taking their own life into their hands, and yet safety was almost an obsession with him. For all the good it did him on the bike. Anything he cared about was an obsession with him. I'm sure he'd have called it the Aids, though, like I did. He cared about details, and its logical. The S in Aids stands for syndrome and you wouldn't say Freddie Mercury died of syndrome, would you.
Box Hill, at just 120 pages, is a brief but beautifully sketched novel. Colin’s account also bring in the fascinating relationship between his parents – a loving one but his father never really recovers from his mother’s hospitalisation in 1975 and his realisation that she might predecease him (which rather explains his lack of concern about his son moving out and in with a biker, and his lack of appreciation, or at least explicit acknowledgement, of the nature of their relationship). And there is an amusing vignette on the rivalry between Central and Circle Line drivers (Colin’s ultimate profession): That's not a tunnel. It's a trench with a lid.
But while I admired the conciseness of the writing - and indeed my personal tastes very much run to 100-150 page novels than bloated 1000 pages monsters - here more might have been more. The enigma at the book's heart is how Colin, his low self-esteem and his desire for not to probe not withstanding, could practically live with Ray for 6 years yet learn so little about him, and covering the last 5 years of their relationship in 10-15 pages rather ducks this question.
3.5 stars.
what comfort I can. To tell him it won’t always be like this
Adam Mars-Jones’s Box Hill, subtitled “a story of low self-esteem” was the winner of the second Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize in 2019. It opens in 1975 on Box Hill near to Dorking, but focused not so the area as a natural beauty spot but rather its other guise, as a haven for bikers:
Box Hill where the bikers go, on a Sunday. Box Hill near Leatherhead in Surrey – jewel of the North Downs, rising almost 400 feet sheer above the river (that’s the river Mole). A cliff densely covered with box and yew. It’s the steepness of the gradient means only box and yew can get a foothold. It could just as easily be called Yew Hill as Box Hill, except box trees are so much rarer.
Box is the heaviest European wood. It doesn’t float. The roots were traditionally used for knife handles. Box trees are poisonous, same as yews. Only camels will eat the leaves, not because they’re immune but because they’re stupid, they don’t know what they’re doing. Box trees are used for mazes because the foliage is so dense, and they can be trained all the way down to the ground. A maze isn’t much cop if you can lie down on your belly, see where you are and wriggle out of it.
The leaves of the box are ovate, entire, smooth, thick, coriaceous and dark green. I looked that up. It sounds like a poem you can’t quite get the sense out of.
At Box Hill there’s downland grazed by sheep. A rich chalk flora. Orchids for those who know them when they see them. It’s a beauty spot overrun one day a week by motorcyclists and their beautiful machines. Bikes that whine, bikes that roar.
The Sunday of my eighteenth birthday: 1975. I went to look at the bikes. Because life at home wasn’t much fun, just at that moment, with Mum in hospital and Dad being unlike himself. Because I was going to get a bike of my own, one day soon. Because I liked to look at the bikers. Because it was my birthday, and I didn’t need a reason.
Bikers on Box Hill circa 1981:
The novel is narrated, looking back from 1999 (the narration perhaps slightly overdoes the ‘back in those days’ type explanations), by Colin, now an autodidact. In 1975 he was eighteen, short (5ft 6) and, in his view, overweight and unattractive, confused sexually and with low self-esteem.
To this day I can't see a fat kid in shorts without wanting to rush over and give him what comfort I can. To tell him it won't always be like this.
He literally stumbles over the feet of Ray, an older (as best as I can work it out, he was in his late twenties), much taller (6ft 5) man, and leader of a small biker gang and poker club.
A brief, spontaneous, sexual encounter follows and Ray takes Colin home first for the night, then permanently, the two men living together for 6 years.
To the reader this isn’t a very symmetric love story. Their experience in bed that first night even Colin, looking back describes as rape, and in their years together, the submissive Colin attends the gang’s poker night as is expected to service any of the men.
Most strikingly, Colin learns almost nothing about Ray – he has no idea what he does for a living (Ray requires Colin to leave the house between 9 and 6 every weekday and never gives him a key), not even his surname, a conscious decision on Colin's behalf - he's no fan of the "Mrs Bluebeard" approach.
It’s a mistake to think friends need to know everything about each other.
Ray is a memorably drawn character, fastidious, but only on his own terms and philosophy, no-one else’s. Looking back Colin ponders on how Ray would have dealt with Aids:
I don't know what Ray would have done when the Aids came along. Anyone who told him what to do was taking their own life into their hands, and yet safety was almost an obsession with him. For all the good it did him on the bike. Anything he cared about was an obsession with him. I'm sure he'd have called it the Aids, though, like I did. He cared about details, and its logical. The S in Aids stands for syndrome and you wouldn't say Freddie Mercury died of syndrome, would you.
Box Hill, at just 120 pages, is a brief but beautifully sketched novel. Colin’s account also bring in the fascinating relationship between his parents – a loving one but his father never really recovers from his mother’s hospitalisation in 1975 and his realisation that she might predecease him (which rather explains his lack of concern about his son moving out and in with a biker, and his lack of appreciation, or at least explicit acknowledgement, of the nature of their relationship). And there is an amusing vignette on the rivalry between Central and Circle Line drivers (Colin’s ultimate profession): That's not a tunnel. It's a trench with a lid.
But while I admired the conciseness of the writing - and indeed my personal tastes very much run to 100-150 page novels than bloated 1000 pages monsters - here more might have been more. The enigma at the book's heart is how Colin, his low self-esteem and his desire for not to probe not withstanding, could practically live with Ray for 6 years yet learn so little about him, and covering the last 5 years of their relationship in 10-15 pages rather ducks this question.
3.5 stars.
April 19, 2025
Como tomar café sin azúcar y eso que no bebo café...pero creo que la comparación le viene bien.
March 25, 2020
I had only read Mars-Jones' debut novel before this, his latest, and while his prose style is readable and engaging, this slight book doesn't quite add up. It holds one's interest, moves swiftly at little more than 100 pages, and SEEMS to be heading to some epiphany ... and then just ends without much purpose. :-(
December 13, 2025
This was three stars until about three quarters of the way through. Ray and Colin’s six-year-long relationship, and indeed life, together is frustratingly sketchy, to the point where this reads like notes for a much longer novel. Then the story takes an unexpected turn, and everything comes into focus beautifully and poignantly. The fact that the film adaptation is called ‘Pillion’ (a biker term for a secondary seat for a back rider, which takes on a different meaning of submission here), definitely indicates that the focus is on the Ray/Colin hookup, the former who barely speaks a handful of sentences for the long time they are together. It is a difficult book to adapt, and I’ll be interested to see Harry Lighton’s take on this surprisingly tender and often hilarious tale of passing the baton (or black blindfold) to the next generation.
March 4, 2022
Unconventional love story about a gay biker couple set against a backdrop of 80's culture.
Sprightly prose documents the coy character of Colin as he clumsily trips over enigmatic Ray. So begins an inscrutable relationship.
Outstanding again from Fitzcarrold Editions. Yet to read anything less than sublime. Highly recommend.
Sprightly prose documents the coy character of Colin as he clumsily trips over enigmatic Ray. So begins an inscrutable relationship.
Outstanding again from Fitzcarrold Editions. Yet to read anything less than sublime. Highly recommend.
January 31, 2021
Esta novela corta, que bien podría tener un par de rombos en la cubierta, cuenta una sórdida historia en la que la belleza emerge de entre una inquietante suciedad. Un joven se topa con un motero que le introduce en su mundillo y con el que comienza una relación enfermiza basada en la dominación y el sometimiento. La prosa del autor es tan peculiar como la propia historia, y ambas tienen esa cualidad de las escenas truculentas que no puedes dejar de mirar por mucho que te horroricen. Espero que la campaña de marketing alrededor de este título no lleve a ningún posible lector a pensar que este es un nuevo ‘Llámame por tu nombre’, porque esto es más bien una versión inglesa, setentera, sadomaso y bien escrita de ‘50 sombras de Grey’.
March 31, 2020
For a while, I thought this book was just okay. But the bugger snuck up on me. Suddenly, around the halfway point, I realized that I was loving it very, very, very much. And more than likely I had loved it from the start without knowing it. Admittedly, I need some time to figure out what it is that I loved about it. The book had some weird narrative quirks that annoyed me at times (observations on seemingly random or banal things), but overall I found the book to be quite compelling. I was transported to different time, place, era, and social circle. I'll end by saying: this book could give Garth Greenwell's Cleanness some competition when it comes to explicit scenes about sexual submissiveness. In fact, I think this book took it even further. I. Did. Not. Expect. That.
March 11, 2020
In 1975 on the titular Box Hill, a place where bikers congregate, Colin, our narrator, literally falls over Ray. After a brief surprising and impulsive sexual encounter, Colin moves in with Ray and they begin a relationship (Ray would always say “Colin didn’t fall for me, he fell over me.”).
In fact, it is wrong to say Colin moves in with Ray. It would be more accurate to say Ray moves Colin in with him. There is only one person in charge in this relationship and Colin is willingly submissive. Through their relationship, if that’s the right word for it, Colin learns almost nothing about Ray (he is banned from the house during the day and doesn’t have a key, he doesn’t know what Ray does for money and he doesn’t even know Ray’s second name).
In parallel with Colin’s experience of what has to be described as an abusive relationship, we also read about his relationship with his parents and about his parents’ marriage. When Colin’s mother spends some time in hospital, this has an unexpected impact on his father which is explored as the story develops.
It’s only a short book (114 pages of story), but what this unfortunately means is that we gloss over almost all of the 6 years that Colin and Ray live together. We learn about how they meet and the early stages of their relationship, but that just teaches us that Colin has low self-esteem (the book’s subtitle is “A Story of Low Self-esteem”) and has decided not to probe into Ray’s life. The fact that we then skate over the next 5 years seems to leave the main topics of the book unaddressed, which, ultimately, is rather frustrating because Ray is a fascinating character and the book ends up feeling like it is missing large chunks of story.
2.5 stars rounded up.
In fact, it is wrong to say Colin moves in with Ray. It would be more accurate to say Ray moves Colin in with him. There is only one person in charge in this relationship and Colin is willingly submissive. Through their relationship, if that’s the right word for it, Colin learns almost nothing about Ray (he is banned from the house during the day and doesn’t have a key, he doesn’t know what Ray does for money and he doesn’t even know Ray’s second name).
In parallel with Colin’s experience of what has to be described as an abusive relationship, we also read about his relationship with his parents and about his parents’ marriage. When Colin’s mother spends some time in hospital, this has an unexpected impact on his father which is explored as the story develops.
It’s only a short book (114 pages of story), but what this unfortunately means is that we gloss over almost all of the 6 years that Colin and Ray live together. We learn about how they meet and the early stages of their relationship, but that just teaches us that Colin has low self-esteem (the book’s subtitle is “A Story of Low Self-esteem”) and has decided not to probe into Ray’s life. The fact that we then skate over the next 5 years seems to leave the main topics of the book unaddressed, which, ultimately, is rather frustrating because Ray is a fascinating character and the book ends up feeling like it is missing large chunks of story.
2.5 stars rounded up.
May 31, 2020
A novel and beautiful take on a queer, dom-sub relationship, Adam Mars-Jones' "Box Hill" normalizes a type of love that is too often pooh-poohed.
On Colin's 18th birthday he trips over Ray's legs as he sleeps under a tree on Box Hill. Ray awakens, unzips his leather biker outfit, and the rest is history. Over the next 6 years Colin moves in with Ray and becomes his submissive: sleeping on the floor, reading between his legs, and watching as he plays poker with his friends. But in this telling is a sense of love and happiness. Mars-Jones uses his characters to depathologize BDSM and to show that in these relationships that so often exist on social margins, true love spawns and persists.
At times sexy and steamy, at times emotionally deep and moving, "Box Hill" is unique in its take and quick in its prose - a necessary read.
On Colin's 18th birthday he trips over Ray's legs as he sleeps under a tree on Box Hill. Ray awakens, unzips his leather biker outfit, and the rest is history. Over the next 6 years Colin moves in with Ray and becomes his submissive: sleeping on the floor, reading between his legs, and watching as he plays poker with his friends. But in this telling is a sense of love and happiness. Mars-Jones uses his characters to depathologize BDSM and to show that in these relationships that so often exist on social margins, true love spawns and persists.
At times sexy and steamy, at times emotionally deep and moving, "Box Hill" is unique in its take and quick in its prose - a necessary read.
February 27, 2023
CWs: Rape, Sexual Assault
What an ugly, despondent, deplorable book.
I am so sick to death of reading books about gay men being demoralised, isolated and abused. The blurb bills this book as a ‘darkly affecting love story between men,’ but I think it’s difficult to call this a love story when the narrator, Colin, is raped by his ‘love interest’ Ray at the beginning of the book. What follows is an account of Colin and Ray’s sadomasochistic relationship, one I would dub neither affecting or a love story.
I would just like to make it clear that I don’t think there is anything wrong with the BDSM community when all parties are consenting adults, but Colin does not at any point consent to what Ray does to him and even remarks upon this several times. The book is subtitled ‘a story of low self esteem’, and it could not be more apt. Colin is frequently sexually abused, and humiliated by Ray and his biker friends, and again I found myself wondering how this could possibly be billed as a love story.
Colin constantly professes his love for Ray throughout the book, but nowhere are we shown this love. The writing does nothing to convince the reader of this relationship, it seems to occur because Mars-Jones wanted it to and not because it’s naturally what should have happened. It all seems completely overly contrived.
The book also seems incredibly self indulgent on the writer’s part; it’s only 120 pages long and I found whole swathes that seemed completely irrelevant, which is coupled with some of the most vile sentences I’ve read recently, like claiming people wishing to commit suicide are selfish. The book is also OBSESSED with sex, to the point where the size of someone’s penis must be remarked upon even when said person is delivering the news of someone’s death.
A totally unenjoyable book with nothing to redeem it. I’m considering throwing it in the recycling rather than donating it like I normally do books I don’t enjoy. That way it may eventually, at some point, become something useful rather than the grotesque thing it currently is.
What an ugly, despondent, deplorable book.
I am so sick to death of reading books about gay men being demoralised, isolated and abused. The blurb bills this book as a ‘darkly affecting love story between men,’ but I think it’s difficult to call this a love story when the narrator, Colin, is raped by his ‘love interest’ Ray at the beginning of the book. What follows is an account of Colin and Ray’s sadomasochistic relationship, one I would dub neither affecting or a love story.
I would just like to make it clear that I don’t think there is anything wrong with the BDSM community when all parties are consenting adults, but Colin does not at any point consent to what Ray does to him and even remarks upon this several times. The book is subtitled ‘a story of low self esteem’, and it could not be more apt. Colin is frequently sexually abused, and humiliated by Ray and his biker friends, and again I found myself wondering how this could possibly be billed as a love story.
Colin constantly professes his love for Ray throughout the book, but nowhere are we shown this love. The writing does nothing to convince the reader of this relationship, it seems to occur because Mars-Jones wanted it to and not because it’s naturally what should have happened. It all seems completely overly contrived.
The book also seems incredibly self indulgent on the writer’s part; it’s only 120 pages long and I found whole swathes that seemed completely irrelevant, which is coupled with some of the most vile sentences I’ve read recently, like claiming people wishing to commit suicide are selfish. The book is also OBSESSED with sex, to the point where the size of someone’s penis must be remarked upon even when said person is delivering the news of someone’s death.
A totally unenjoyable book with nothing to redeem it. I’m considering throwing it in the recycling rather than donating it like I normally do books I don’t enjoy. That way it may eventually, at some point, become something useful rather than the grotesque thing it currently is.
March 21, 2020
Beautifully written, haunting story - at least, I’m sure I will ponder for a while what it’s all about. My puzzlement drives the three stars, the book probably deserves 4.
It’s very short - an uninterrupted afternoon’s read.
Mars-Jones sketches a gay Dom/sub relationship with great sensitivity, insight, and originality. The narrator’s family life is also richly described, and the time period (largely 1980s). Despite its brevity the novel covers a lot of ground.
There is a developed thread running through of political attitudes and British history and cultural traditions. Not since Howard’s End have I read a book using the British landscape so determinedly as metaphor for the state of the Nation - to what end though is the question. At one point while reading I wondered if this was an allegory for Britain’s political progress since 1979 but if so it’s almost fully buried and the author maintains full deniability.
Colin the narrator ends the novel with huge questions about his experience with his lover Ray - as does the reader.
It’s very short - an uninterrupted afternoon’s read.
Mars-Jones sketches a gay Dom/sub relationship with great sensitivity, insight, and originality. The narrator’s family life is also richly described, and the time period (largely 1980s). Despite its brevity the novel covers a lot of ground.
There is a developed thread running through of political attitudes and British history and cultural traditions. Not since Howard’s End have I read a book using the British landscape so determinedly as metaphor for the state of the Nation - to what end though is the question. At one point while reading I wondered if this was an allegory for Britain’s political progress since 1979 but if so it’s almost fully buried and the author maintains full deniability.
Colin the narrator ends the novel with huge questions about his experience with his lover Ray - as does the reader.
May 26, 2020
3.5 stars
This was a nicely written, nicely brief, slice of gay biker life from the 1970s.
I'm at a bit of a loss to say more. The subtitle is "A story of low self-esteem." I think it largely depends on how you interpret the central relationship. If you find it deeply problematic, as I did for the first half, then the book perhaps means one thing. If, as is implied later in the book, it is consensual if unequal, then I'm not entirely sure the book means anything.
In any case, the writing was nimble and elegant, and there was a strong sense of time and place. At 120 pages, it didn't outstay its welcome.
This was a nicely written, nicely brief, slice of gay biker life from the 1970s.
I'm at a bit of a loss to say more. The subtitle is "A story of low self-esteem." I think it largely depends on how you interpret the central relationship. If you find it deeply problematic, as I did for the first half, then the book perhaps means one thing. If, as is implied later in the book, it is consensual if unequal, then I'm not entirely sure the book means anything.
In any case, the writing was nimble and elegant, and there was a strong sense of time and place. At 120 pages, it didn't outstay its welcome.
September 21, 2020
I received this one in the mail as a part of my subscription with Fitzcarraldo Editions and, as it's a relatively slim novel, 125 pages or so, I finished it in an evening.
This isn't the type of book I'd typically read, and I suppose that's one of the good things about a book subscription, you get exposed to books you wouldn't typically read. Unfortunately though, this one just didn't do it for me.
It's difficult to summarize what "Box Hill" is essentially about. I can't really say that it's a love story, because it isn't, really. Or at least not in my opinion. But that's where things get a bit murky.
This is more or less about the gay scene in 1970s London. Or rather, the "gay biker community," according to the summary posted on Goodreads. As a straight, non-biking man, I didn't know much about this world, and I still don't know much about it. But, again, that's the great thing about books. They take us to places we might not otherwise go.
But I sort of wish I hadn't gone on this trip.
Things start out in a hurry, and I think it's only on the second page or so when our protagonist, Colin, stumbles — quite literally — across Ray, a leather-clad biker sprawled out on the grass of the titular park. Before Colin's even managed to stand up, Ray solicits oral sex from him, and the next thing you know, the two are living together.
On thinking about it, I don't think I've read anything else that features two gay lovers as the main characters, so I have to go to movies here. I really loved "Call Me By Your Name," though I again haven't read the book, but was not at all a fan of "Brokeback Mountain" as I didn't think the story was all that good. My feeling is that folks in the media, as well as the "woke" Twitterati, bend over backwards praising stories that feature oft-marginalized characters not because the story is good, though in the case of "Call Me By Your Name" it certainly can be, but because they feature oft-marginalized characters.
That's the only reason I can give for the fact that anyone might actually like this book. The relationship between Colin and Ray can't be called anything other than disturbing and yet, from the reviews I've read, it's billed as some sort of charming love story. I have a hard time understanding that, as nothing here would seem to resemble love, at least not to my mind.
As I mentioned, Colin moves in with Ray, and the two live together for four — or was it six? — years, but in that entire time, Ray never gives Colin a key, and Ray expects Colin to leave every morning at a certain time and not return before a certain time. There are a lot of other strange, yet unsaid, rules too. In one bizarre scene, Ray "takes Colin out" but does so like one would a dog, with the latter on a leash.
In short, Ray thoroughly dominates him and Colin is clearly meant to understand and accept that he is being dominated. The subtitle of this book is actually "a story of low self-esteem" but, oddly, I think we're meant to come away from this thinking that Ray helped Colin to feel less insecure.
I'm aware that gay relationships can be a bit more, erm, nuanced than straight ones, but I just had a hard time relating this "love story" to anything genuinely loving. And yet, there it is. At the end, when a tragic event befalls Ray, we're meant to feel terrible about it. But, instead, I couldn't help thinking that the whole thing might actually be good, literally liberating. For Colin at least.
Or am I missing the point entirely?
Is it possible for a straight man to understand "gay" literature? As a civilized individual, I obviously believe consenting adults should be free to enter into whatever kind of relationship they want, and it should go without saying that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. But are certain kinds of literature inaccessible to those not within a specific community? Is this just not for me?
Put "Box Hill" as being for the "gay biker community," then.
This isn't the type of book I'd typically read, and I suppose that's one of the good things about a book subscription, you get exposed to books you wouldn't typically read. Unfortunately though, this one just didn't do it for me.
It's difficult to summarize what "Box Hill" is essentially about. I can't really say that it's a love story, because it isn't, really. Or at least not in my opinion. But that's where things get a bit murky.
This is more or less about the gay scene in 1970s London. Or rather, the "gay biker community," according to the summary posted on Goodreads. As a straight, non-biking man, I didn't know much about this world, and I still don't know much about it. But, again, that's the great thing about books. They take us to places we might not otherwise go.
But I sort of wish I hadn't gone on this trip.
Things start out in a hurry, and I think it's only on the second page or so when our protagonist, Colin, stumbles — quite literally — across Ray, a leather-clad biker sprawled out on the grass of the titular park. Before Colin's even managed to stand up, Ray solicits oral sex from him, and the next thing you know, the two are living together.
On thinking about it, I don't think I've read anything else that features two gay lovers as the main characters, so I have to go to movies here. I really loved "Call Me By Your Name," though I again haven't read the book, but was not at all a fan of "Brokeback Mountain" as I didn't think the story was all that good. My feeling is that folks in the media, as well as the "woke" Twitterati, bend over backwards praising stories that feature oft-marginalized characters not because the story is good, though in the case of "Call Me By Your Name" it certainly can be, but because they feature oft-marginalized characters.
That's the only reason I can give for the fact that anyone might actually like this book. The relationship between Colin and Ray can't be called anything other than disturbing and yet, from the reviews I've read, it's billed as some sort of charming love story. I have a hard time understanding that, as nothing here would seem to resemble love, at least not to my mind.
As I mentioned, Colin moves in with Ray, and the two live together for four — or was it six? — years, but in that entire time, Ray never gives Colin a key, and Ray expects Colin to leave every morning at a certain time and not return before a certain time. There are a lot of other strange, yet unsaid, rules too. In one bizarre scene, Ray "takes Colin out" but does so like one would a dog, with the latter on a leash.
In short, Ray thoroughly dominates him and Colin is clearly meant to understand and accept that he is being dominated. The subtitle of this book is actually "a story of low self-esteem" but, oddly, I think we're meant to come away from this thinking that Ray helped Colin to feel less insecure.
I'm aware that gay relationships can be a bit more, erm, nuanced than straight ones, but I just had a hard time relating this "love story" to anything genuinely loving. And yet, there it is. At the end, when a tragic event befalls Ray, we're meant to feel terrible about it. But, instead, I couldn't help thinking that the whole thing might actually be good, literally liberating. For Colin at least.
Or am I missing the point entirely?
Is it possible for a straight man to understand "gay" literature? As a civilized individual, I obviously believe consenting adults should be free to enter into whatever kind of relationship they want, and it should go without saying that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is wrong. But are certain kinds of literature inaccessible to those not within a specific community? Is this just not for me?
Put "Box Hill" as being for the "gay biker community," then.
May 15, 2025
When you're in your late teens/early twenties and you're walking around in the dark by a pub and you trip over a hot older biker dude sitting on the ground and he reacts by unzipping his pants and casually taking out his cock and balls. So then you suck him off and after that, you follow him home and he SAs you and you become his on-call boy toy for like six years or something.
Yeah, relatable.
Yeah, relatable.
January 26, 2021
A quiet, brief novel told in a deceptively simple, conversational style that builds slowly to a moving finish.
There's nothing flashy or experimental here, yet the very lack of narrative tricks or complex structure, the commitment to writing this in very much the same way a thoughtful, articulate individual would truly tell their own story, with all the baffling elisions and slight doublings-back one naturally finds in conversation, gives what might otherwise seem a rather wan and underfleshed tale a remarkable freshness and makes for a very compelling read. I read this in a single sitting, not wanting to put it down or let the narrative go, and I find myself thinking about it, hearing Colin's voice in my head still, nearly 24 hours later.
There's nothing flashy or experimental here, yet the very lack of narrative tricks or complex structure, the commitment to writing this in very much the same way a thoughtful, articulate individual would truly tell their own story, with all the baffling elisions and slight doublings-back one naturally finds in conversation, gives what might otherwise seem a rather wan and underfleshed tale a remarkable freshness and makes for a very compelling read. I read this in a single sitting, not wanting to put it down or let the narrative go, and I find myself thinking about it, hearing Colin's voice in my head still, nearly 24 hours later.
February 15, 2021
"Incluso las cosas más repentinas tienen una razón de ser. Tal vez sean estas las que tienen más historia. Tarde o temprano tendría que responder a la emoción y al peligro asumidos. Era solo una cuestión de cuándo y cómo iba a hacerlo. Tarde o temprano tendría que responder a la llamada del tren que aguardaba ante mí."
Más que una historia de amor, una historia de aprendizaje a partir de una relación de dominación y sumisión, un homenaje a los últimos coletazos de una época perdida en algún recodo de aquella carretera.
Más que una historia de amor, una historia de aprendizaje a partir de una relación de dominación y sumisión, un homenaje a los últimos coletazos de una época perdida en algún recodo de aquella carretera.
November 30, 2025
It seems I first read Box Hill five years ago, in the midst of a world engulfed in a pandemic. Having forgotten that, I felt compelled to pick it up again because of the new film adaptation. While it loses a mark for its occasionally confusing narrative, I still enjoyed it overall and found it an insightful look into a subculture I knew very little about.
In the end, it left me feeling quite sad, given the melancholy of Ray’s memories.
A moving ode to a past that is no longer recognisable that has still stood the test of time, even though it was five years ago since I last picked it up!
In the end, it left me feeling quite sad, given the melancholy of Ray’s memories.
A moving ode to a past that is no longer recognisable that has still stood the test of time, even though it was five years ago since I last picked it up!
Read
January 23, 2026Source of book: bought for myself
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
I read this to try and make sense of the film Pillion.
It did not.
But I think--for better or worse--I felt I understood the book considerably better than I did the film. Major spoilers for both, including differences between ahead. Also content guidance for SA and abusive relationships.
The book and film both essentially follow the same plot … ish? A shy young man meets a hot biker and enters into a power exchange relationship with him. In the film, tension escalates as the shy young man (who is played by the kid who played Dudley Dursley and is devastatingly cute and toppable, god help us all) discovers his confidence and starts to ask for ‘more’ from the hot biker. Like, you know, intimacy and being 24/6 instead of 24/7. The hot biker--who is clearly wrestling with an inner torment neither we nor the shy young man can access--can’t cope and splits. The shy young man is very sad. Then he finds a new dom willing to negotiate and accept his boundaries and stuff. The end. So, as you can probably gather from this, the film is a messy beast, though I could watch untold hours of Dudley Dursley (I should really learn, like, actors’ names) gazing upwards with unabashed adoration in this exquisitely submissive eyes. Anyway, the film is a messy beast because I don’t know if what I perceive it as saying is what it believes it is saying, and that’s just a huge big artistic gap to fall down. Like, my take on the Dudley Dursley/Murderbot relationship (again, I really need to learn actors’ names because that is the worst crossover fanfic, fuck me) is that it’s fundamentally abusive, not because of the dynamics in play, or the nature of the acts they engage in, but because Dudley has no understanding of the fact his needs have any relevance to the relationship. The he is, in any way, allowed to negotiate.
And where my brain falls out is that I can’t tell if the movie believes its portraying something abusive or … not? Like there’s an awkward scene where Dudley’s mum calls out the fact Murderbot seems to treat him like shit, and Murderbot gives her a sententious speech about how just because something doesn’t look good to you on the outside, doesn’t mean it isn’t good for the people involved in it. Which is a reasonable point and, obviously, having to justify your non-normative relationship is always going to be a losing game. But, at the same time, “I am legitimately concerned my son, who I love is, is in an abusive relationship” is a very different context to “I, a judgemental normie, do not understand your queer subculture.” Also her instincts aren’t completely off-base because, irrespective of his feelings for Murderbot, Dudley is unhappy about some aspects of the relationship.
And then Murderbot going to check the perimeter and never coming back, the second he shows a glimmer of emotional vulnerability, is the dick cherry on top of the wanker sundae.
Anyway, anyway, I think looked at in the most positive light--and the one that makes something coherent from the film’s choices--is that Pillion (the movie) is essentially a bildungsroman for a sub. In that, by the end of the film, Dudley has learned about his own needs and his own nature, and has the confidence to seek out what he wants, while establishing healthy boundaries that he expects to be respected. And, arguably, that holds true irrespective of whether his relationship with Murderbot was abusive. Unless you conclude that his dynamic with Murderbot was so boundary-eroding that Dudley is incapable of fully understanding his own needs by that point and is just settling for the bare minimum in the hope of being worthy of another dom like Murderbot. Though, that of course, dismisses Dudley’s capacity for agency. Or for the capacity of people to move beyond unhealthy or abusive contexts. Which is not a great way to approach this kind of material.
Box Hill (or to give the book it’s full title, Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem, which I think rather changes how we approach it) does very different work from a similar material. Colin, awkward, unattractive and fat (the book does engage with Colin’s internalised fatphobia in a self-aware but it was an aspect of his identity I was honestly pleased to do without in the film - not because being fat is bad but because I don’t think the world needs more fatphobia in it), falls into a dom/sub relationship with “tasty” biker, Ray. On the surface, I think this relationship codes more abusive than the film. For example, the first time they have penetrative sex, Colin actively describes it as rape:
But he goes on:
So, yeah. It’s hard to know what to make of this. I think can reasonably take the stance that nothing positive or healthy can follow on from something like this. Or you can see it through the lens that is--ironically--offered in the film: that there is, as Colin himself concludes, a ceremonial aspect to Ray’s assault. That it’s a moment, an act, belonging to a world and subculture and a context that’s it’s impossible to judge or understand from the outside. That it needs to belong to the participants. The other aspect of the relationship that crosses lines that the film does not is the expectation that Colin will sexually service the members of Ray’s biker gang, something that Colin doesn’t enjoy, but does consent to (and Ray intervenes aggressively when there’s an issue with one of the biker’s trying to take of advantage of Colin beyond his oral obedience). Once again this is red flaggy, especially because it concerns a sex act reluctantly offered. But, once again, we get into this unknowable space of personal agency. After all, Colin makes it clear in his narration that he didn’t feel it was possible to consent to Ray’s assault. But with the bikers, he’s merely reluctant. And one of the things that makes bdsm so endlessly complex--so horrifically easy to fuck the fuck up--is the fact that, for some submissives (please note the use of ‘some’ there), doing things, or experiencing things, they might not necessarily independently consent to, or seek out, is part of what what they’re looking for in a trust-based power exchange.
So yes. At least two aspects where the book is overtly less consensual and more abusive than the movie. And I wouldn’t say anyone was wrong for writing off the relationship on those grounds. There’s a review of Box Hill in The Guardian which is very certain that the relationship is “an abusive relationship masquerading as a consensual dominant/submissive one.” But--and treading very carefully here in case I accidentally position myself as, somehow, pro-assault and pro-abuse (which, in case it needs explicitly stating, I am not!)--I ultimately found the book more nuanced than that in its exploration of Colin and Ray’s relationship. Obviously, in the case of both the book and the film, we’re talking about fictional characters in a fictional context, so there comes a point at which even discussing the reality of abuse becomes semi-spurious because these are non-existent people we’re dealing with. But, for me, despite the fact there are some lines the book crosses that the film does not (although I will say while the film doesn’t deploy the r-word over Murderbot’s first fucking of Dudley, it doesn’t look like a great experience from Dudley’s perspective), I felt I understood the book, when I still don’t think I did the film. And a big part of that was kind of coming to the conclusion that Colin and Ray’s relationship, though it was unconventional, though it was challenging in several ways, though it wouldn’t be a relationship I would choose from either direction, was … a meaningful one? Even a loving one.
For starters, while Colin is the POV character of the movie, in Box Hill we share his head, as well as his perspective. And so it was a lot easier to assign Colin consent and agency, because we, err, we know he’s consenting and he demonstrates agency repeatedly. For example, in the film, Murderbot just kind of wordlessly assigns Dudley tasks, like shopping and cooking, and Dudley submissively gets on with them. In the book, Colin actively chooses to participate in the relationship by performing those tasks:
There’s also multiple scenes in the film of Murderbot kind of ignoring Dudley. Like the first time Dudley cooks for him, Murderbot sits on the sofa with his dog, while Dudley tries to find somewhere to sit, is discouraged from all possibilities by Murderbot, and then sort of stands forlornly behind him, looking uncomfortable, denied any sort of place in Murderbot’s life. (I think it weirdly doesn’t help that Murderbot has a dog, while Ray does not: like maybe it’s meant to show he is capable of emotional connection, but it mostly comes across that he thinks less of Dudley than he does an animal). In the book this plays out very differently:
Obviously we get a lot more of Colin’s thought processes, though of course it’s up to us whether we believe him when he assures us he chooses where he wants to be, that Ray would never force him, and that having fewer choices felt liberating, but “curled up at his feet” is so so so much more intimate (albeit a power dynamic themed version of intimate) than “standing like a lost lemon behind his sofa.”
Another scene that plays out very differently in film versus movie is where Colin/Dudley watches Ray/Murderbot clean his motorbike from the window. In the movie, this is also heartbreakingly forlorn, as Murderbot never once acknowledges Dudley’s gaze, and it’s filmed as if from a great distance, with Dudley’s sad little face seeming locked behind the glass of the window, completely irrelevant to the care and love Murderbot is lavishing on his motorbike.
Once again, we can doubt Colin’s perception--we can claim he’s self-consciously transforming a hurtful situation into something loving--but, to me, this reads entirely reciprocal. It’s a psychosexual game they’re playing with each other; not an an expression of never-to-be-fulfilled yearning on the part of Colin. And, once again, it doesn’t feel like something that can necessarily be understood or accessed on the outside (though it can be accepted on its own terms).
There are a handful of other elements that were changed quite substantially in the film that, to me, provided greater context for the Ray/Colin relationship--and, I think, additional mechanisms to understand and interpret it. The first is that, unlike in the film, where Dudley is clearly unhappy with the terms of the relationship as established by Murderbot and their break-up kind of directly follows an erosion of Murderbot’s profound emotional distance, in the book, Colin never seeks more from Ray than what is offered. He sleeps on the floor, he sits at Ray’s feet, he cooks as a part of his role that he’s chosen, and generally accepts Ray’s … you know … lifestyle dominance, or whatever you want to call it. I think, for me, it’s a lot easier to accept a relationship as presented when the participants are on the same page about what it should look like and entail. The second issue comes down to the role Colin’s parents play in the movie versus the book. In the movie, they are a loving, supportive couple and there is a big sad because his mother dies of cancer about two seconds after calling Ray out for maybe being an abusive arsehole to her son. In the book, it is far far more complicated than that. His parents are deeply loving, but in a way that leaves Colin feeling slightly excluded from their closeness. Moreover, his mother doesn’t get cancer, she goes to hospital for a condition that turns out to be fairly benign, and this sends Colin’s dad into a kind of spiral:
This goes even further with Colin describing his mother’s last years with her father (before he passes away) as “like being under house arrest”. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s undeniable that the dynamic between Colin’s parents, at this point, has become abusive--except the abuse remains unspoken because their relationship continues to reflect heteronormative ideals of a devoted, married couple. It feels to me that the presence in the book of a heterosexual relationship turned toxic in a way that is never quite recognised (other than by Colin) forces us to reflect more deeply on Ray and Colin’s relationship, where the power differential and degree of emotional distance create assumptions of toxicity that are, perhaps, as deceptive as Colin’s parents soul-smothering closeness.
Finally, and here’s the big one. Pillion is set in the present. Pillion is set in the late 70s/early 80s (pre-AIDS crisis). And Ray flat out fucking dies (in a biking accident, btw, nothing queer-coded). This massively massively changes the context for the book and the relationship. For a start, Ray and Colin are together for several years. And, while it’s obviously very sad that Ray snuffs it, it makes him way way less of a total utter dickwad than going to check the perimeter on his sweet, submissive boyfriend. And, yes, yes, while we do still live in a gross and queerphobic world, it makes so much more sense to me that someone in the 70s would demand such aggressive separation between their queer life and the straight life. In the book, Ray’s mother comes and makes a literal bonfire out of his possessions: reading between the lines, I think we can conclude she was not very supportive of his identity. Part of our understanding of Box Hill as a lovely story, I think, must come from the same place that we understand a book like A Single Man: it is the grief, in the end, that speaks to the love.
Oh wow, this review is so long I've used up the character limit. Continued in comments.
Relevant disclaimers: None
Please note: This review may not be reproduced or quoted, in whole or in part, without explicit consent from the author.
And remember: I am not here to judge your drag, I mean your book. Books are art and art is subjective. These are just my personal thoughts. They are not meant to be taken as broader commentary on the general quality of the work. Believe me, I have not enjoyed many an excellent book, and my individual lack of enjoyment has not made any of those books less excellent or (more relevantly) less successful.
***
I read this to try and make sense of the film Pillion.
It did not.
But I think--for better or worse--I felt I understood the book considerably better than I did the film. Major spoilers for both, including differences between ahead. Also content guidance for SA and abusive relationships.
The book and film both essentially follow the same plot … ish? A shy young man meets a hot biker and enters into a power exchange relationship with him. In the film, tension escalates as the shy young man (who is played by the kid who played Dudley Dursley and is devastatingly cute and toppable, god help us all) discovers his confidence and starts to ask for ‘more’ from the hot biker. Like, you know, intimacy and being 24/6 instead of 24/7. The hot biker--who is clearly wrestling with an inner torment neither we nor the shy young man can access--can’t cope and splits. The shy young man is very sad. Then he finds a new dom willing to negotiate and accept his boundaries and stuff. The end. So, as you can probably gather from this, the film is a messy beast, though I could watch untold hours of Dudley Dursley (I should really learn, like, actors’ names) gazing upwards with unabashed adoration in this exquisitely submissive eyes. Anyway, the film is a messy beast because I don’t know if what I perceive it as saying is what it believes it is saying, and that’s just a huge big artistic gap to fall down. Like, my take on the Dudley Dursley/Murderbot relationship (again, I really need to learn actors’ names because that is the worst crossover fanfic, fuck me) is that it’s fundamentally abusive, not because of the dynamics in play, or the nature of the acts they engage in, but because Dudley has no understanding of the fact his needs have any relevance to the relationship. The he is, in any way, allowed to negotiate.
And where my brain falls out is that I can’t tell if the movie believes its portraying something abusive or … not? Like there’s an awkward scene where Dudley’s mum calls out the fact Murderbot seems to treat him like shit, and Murderbot gives her a sententious speech about how just because something doesn’t look good to you on the outside, doesn’t mean it isn’t good for the people involved in it. Which is a reasonable point and, obviously, having to justify your non-normative relationship is always going to be a losing game. But, at the same time, “I am legitimately concerned my son, who I love is, is in an abusive relationship” is a very different context to “I, a judgemental normie, do not understand your queer subculture.” Also her instincts aren’t completely off-base because, irrespective of his feelings for Murderbot, Dudley is unhappy about some aspects of the relationship.
And then Murderbot going to check the perimeter and never coming back, the second he shows a glimmer of emotional vulnerability, is the dick cherry on top of the wanker sundae.
Anyway, anyway, I think looked at in the most positive light--and the one that makes something coherent from the film’s choices--is that Pillion (the movie) is essentially a bildungsroman for a sub. In that, by the end of the film, Dudley has learned about his own needs and his own nature, and has the confidence to seek out what he wants, while establishing healthy boundaries that he expects to be respected. And, arguably, that holds true irrespective of whether his relationship with Murderbot was abusive. Unless you conclude that his dynamic with Murderbot was so boundary-eroding that Dudley is incapable of fully understanding his own needs by that point and is just settling for the bare minimum in the hope of being worthy of another dom like Murderbot. Though, that of course, dismisses Dudley’s capacity for agency. Or for the capacity of people to move beyond unhealthy or abusive contexts. Which is not a great way to approach this kind of material.
Box Hill (or to give the book it’s full title, Box Hill: A Story of Low Self-Esteem, which I think rather changes how we approach it) does very different work from a similar material. Colin, awkward, unattractive and fat (the book does engage with Colin’s internalised fatphobia in a self-aware but it was an aspect of his identity I was honestly pleased to do without in the film - not because being fat is bad but because I don’t think the world needs more fatphobia in it), falls into a dom/sub relationship with “tasty” biker, Ray. On the surface, I think this relationship codes more abusive than the film. For example, the first time they have penetrative sex, Colin actively describes it as rape:
The body I had experienced as decisiveness and strength I now suffered as sheer weight and invasion. He pinned me down. And what had begun as a rough seduction ended as, well, rape. […] Some things can’t be consented to. Drunk or sober, no-one could agree to being opened up so fiercely. […] At least he was quick – and I don’t think he was doing it for pleasure. He made me suffer, but he didn’t feed on my suffering. The way he had been earlier on was much more in character, implacable but not cruel. It’s just that I think this was a special occasion for him. For both of us.
But he goes on:
I’d thought he was going to kill me with his cock, but when I found he hadn’t, after a while I started to cheer up, and to think it hadn’t been too bad, all in all. I’d never looked forward to being fucked, not ever. I’d thought it was all going to be much worse […] The second time may not have come so soon, I don’t see how it could have, but whenever it happened, he took his time and I enjoyed it. The pain had a rhythm and the rhythm was pleasure. Ray never hurt me again.
So, yeah. It’s hard to know what to make of this. I think can reasonably take the stance that nothing positive or healthy can follow on from something like this. Or you can see it through the lens that is--ironically--offered in the film: that there is, as Colin himself concludes, a ceremonial aspect to Ray’s assault. That it’s a moment, an act, belonging to a world and subculture and a context that’s it’s impossible to judge or understand from the outside. That it needs to belong to the participants. The other aspect of the relationship that crosses lines that the film does not is the expectation that Colin will sexually service the members of Ray’s biker gang, something that Colin doesn’t enjoy, but does consent to (and Ray intervenes aggressively when there’s an issue with one of the biker’s trying to take of advantage of Colin beyond his oral obedience). Once again this is red flaggy, especially because it concerns a sex act reluctantly offered. But, once again, we get into this unknowable space of personal agency. After all, Colin makes it clear in his narration that he didn’t feel it was possible to consent to Ray’s assault. But with the bikers, he’s merely reluctant. And one of the things that makes bdsm so endlessly complex--so horrifically easy to fuck the fuck up--is the fact that, for some submissives (please note the use of ‘some’ there), doing things, or experiencing things, they might not necessarily independently consent to, or seek out, is part of what what they’re looking for in a trust-based power exchange.
So yes. At least two aspects where the book is overtly less consensual and more abusive than the movie. And I wouldn’t say anyone was wrong for writing off the relationship on those grounds. There’s a review of Box Hill in The Guardian which is very certain that the relationship is “an abusive relationship masquerading as a consensual dominant/submissive one.” But--and treading very carefully here in case I accidentally position myself as, somehow, pro-assault and pro-abuse (which, in case it needs explicitly stating, I am not!)--I ultimately found the book more nuanced than that in its exploration of Colin and Ray’s relationship. Obviously, in the case of both the book and the film, we’re talking about fictional characters in a fictional context, so there comes a point at which even discussing the reality of abuse becomes semi-spurious because these are non-existent people we’re dealing with. But, for me, despite the fact there are some lines the book crosses that the film does not (although I will say while the film doesn’t deploy the r-word over Murderbot’s first fucking of Dudley, it doesn’t look like a great experience from Dudley’s perspective), I felt I understood the book, when I still don’t think I did the film. And a big part of that was kind of coming to the conclusion that Colin and Ray’s relationship, though it was unconventional, though it was challenging in several ways, though it wouldn’t be a relationship I would choose from either direction, was … a meaningful one? Even a loving one.
For starters, while Colin is the POV character of the movie, in Box Hill we share his head, as well as his perspective. And so it was a lot easier to assign Colin consent and agency, because we, err, we know he’s consenting and he demonstrates agency repeatedly. For example, in the film, Murderbot just kind of wordlessly assigns Dudley tasks, like shopping and cooking, and Dudley submissively gets on with them. In the book, Colin actively chooses to participate in the relationship by performing those tasks:
I tried to work out what my place in the household was, apart from the obvious. What do you do for the man who is everything? I tried to tidy up, until he told me not to, to leave everything as it was. Then I decided that the cooking must be my department, and he didn’t tell me any different, so I set myself to that.
There’s also multiple scenes in the film of Murderbot kind of ignoring Dudley. Like the first time Dudley cooks for him, Murderbot sits on the sofa with his dog, while Dudley tries to find somewhere to sit, is discouraged from all possibilities by Murderbot, and then sort of stands forlornly behind him, looking uncomfortable, denied any sort of place in Murderbot’s life. (I think it weirdly doesn’t help that Murderbot has a dog, while Ray does not: like maybe it’s meant to show he is capable of emotional connection, but it mostly comes across that he thinks less of Dudley than he does an animal). In the book this plays out very differently:
When he stretched out his hand, I thought he meant I should sit on the end furthest from him, but when I made my way over there he just shook his head – still without meeting my eyes. The leather of his one-piece suit accompanied his gestures with a supple creaking. In a way it was insulting that he warned me off the sofa as if I was a dog that would leave stray hairs on it. But if he hadn’t given me any guidance, how would I have ended up where I wanted to be but would never dare to suggest, curled up at his feet? He didn’t tell me what to do. He didn’t say that I had no right to a chair, any more than my naff jacket had a right to a peg. In a strange way he freed my choices, though he seemed to take them away. There was a matching armchair opposite the sofa, and I could perfectly well have gone over to that. Of course I’ll never know whether he would actually have let me sit there, but knowing his nature better now, I think he would have. He just wasn’t interested in forcing people.
Obviously we get a lot more of Colin’s thought processes, though of course it’s up to us whether we believe him when he assures us he chooses where he wants to be, that Ray would never force him, and that having fewer choices felt liberating, but “curled up at his feet” is so so so much more intimate (albeit a power dynamic themed version of intimate) than “standing like a lost lemon behind his sofa.”
Another scene that plays out very differently in film versus movie is where Colin/Dudley watches Ray/Murderbot clean his motorbike from the window. In the movie, this is also heartbreakingly forlorn, as Murderbot never once acknowledges Dudley’s gaze, and it’s filmed as if from a great distance, with Dudley’s sad little face seeming locked behind the glass of the window, completely irrelevant to the care and love Murderbot is lavishing on his motorbike.
Obviously Ray knew I was there watching him the whole time, otherwise he would have had to look up at least once in a solid hour. Law of averages. So he knew I was there the whole time, and he chose not to acknowledge me. As for why he preferred the subtler way of showing we were attuned to one another, well: one-way sharing was the sort he liked best. I can’t explain it any better than that. One-way sharing was the sort he liked best.
As for why, I have no idea. It’s what worked for him. And in fact, after Ray had paid me no obvious attention for a while, it seemed to me that the atmosphere below me had changed. The air gradually thickened and clotted with secret excitement. Ray’s movements never speeded up or became flustered, but they were more and more loaded with sexual consequence. By the time he had polished the last square inch of elegant and potent metal, my heart was in my mouth. By now I was dreading his looking up as much as I had wanted it to happen when I started to watch. If he looked up, oh God if he winked at me, the whole extraordinary moment would fall to the ground and blow away.
Luckily Ray was not a man who winked, and he never looked up, never broke the spell. I stayed watching him until the bike was gleaming, but before I heard the front door open I’d returned the stool to the kitchen. Keeping my side of the bargain, so there was no visible evidence of the whole little drama played out between us, in the lounge and below the windows.
Once again, we can doubt Colin’s perception--we can claim he’s self-consciously transforming a hurtful situation into something loving--but, to me, this reads entirely reciprocal. It’s a psychosexual game they’re playing with each other; not an an expression of never-to-be-fulfilled yearning on the part of Colin. And, once again, it doesn’t feel like something that can necessarily be understood or accessed on the outside (though it can be accepted on its own terms).
There are a handful of other elements that were changed quite substantially in the film that, to me, provided greater context for the Ray/Colin relationship--and, I think, additional mechanisms to understand and interpret it. The first is that, unlike in the film, where Dudley is clearly unhappy with the terms of the relationship as established by Murderbot and their break-up kind of directly follows an erosion of Murderbot’s profound emotional distance, in the book, Colin never seeks more from Ray than what is offered. He sleeps on the floor, he sits at Ray’s feet, he cooks as a part of his role that he’s chosen, and generally accepts Ray’s … you know … lifestyle dominance, or whatever you want to call it. I think, for me, it’s a lot easier to accept a relationship as presented when the participants are on the same page about what it should look like and entail. The second issue comes down to the role Colin’s parents play in the movie versus the book. In the movie, they are a loving, supportive couple and there is a big sad because his mother dies of cancer about two seconds after calling Ray out for maybe being an abusive arsehole to her son. In the book, it is far far more complicated than that. His parents are deeply loving, but in a way that leaves Colin feeling slightly excluded from their closeness. Moreover, his mother doesn’t get cancer, she goes to hospital for a condition that turns out to be fairly benign, and this sends Colin’s dad into a kind of spiral:
He and Mum were still inseparable, but it wasn’t the same kind of inseparable. The balance went out of it. Balance went, and fear came in. It wasn’t any more that they dealt with life instinctively as a couple, although they were always together. It was simply that he couldn’t bear to let her out of his sight, which seemed the same at first but was almost the opposite.
This goes even further with Colin describing his mother’s last years with her father (before he passes away) as “like being under house arrest”. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s undeniable that the dynamic between Colin’s parents, at this point, has become abusive--except the abuse remains unspoken because their relationship continues to reflect heteronormative ideals of a devoted, married couple. It feels to me that the presence in the book of a heterosexual relationship turned toxic in a way that is never quite recognised (other than by Colin) forces us to reflect more deeply on Ray and Colin’s relationship, where the power differential and degree of emotional distance create assumptions of toxicity that are, perhaps, as deceptive as Colin’s parents soul-smothering closeness.
Finally, and here’s the big one. Pillion is set in the present. Pillion is set in the late 70s/early 80s (pre-AIDS crisis). And Ray flat out fucking dies (in a biking accident, btw, nothing queer-coded). This massively massively changes the context for the book and the relationship. For a start, Ray and Colin are together for several years. And, while it’s obviously very sad that Ray snuffs it, it makes him way way less of a total utter dickwad than going to check the perimeter on his sweet, submissive boyfriend. And, yes, yes, while we do still live in a gross and queerphobic world, it makes so much more sense to me that someone in the 70s would demand such aggressive separation between their queer life and the straight life. In the book, Ray’s mother comes and makes a literal bonfire out of his possessions: reading between the lines, I think we can conclude she was not very supportive of his identity. Part of our understanding of Box Hill as a lovely story, I think, must come from the same place that we understand a book like A Single Man: it is the grief, in the end, that speaks to the love.
Oh wow, this review is so long I've used up the character limit. Continued in comments.
April 15, 2022
“A man is only a man if he takes no notice of me.”
Colin doesn’t hold a high opinion of himself. He often feels like a waste of space. An interloper best forgotten. That is until he trips over Ray one night on Box Hill. Ray is a whole other creature. A commanding presence in his leathers, straddling his motorbike. Colin and Ray couldn’t be two different people. But Ray validates Colin’s feelings about himself. He is garbage and Ray thinks so too. Colin isn’t deserving of affection, he’s worthless and Ray treats him as such. What begins as a chance encounter, evolves into something darker and far more ambiguous. At times abusive, at times painful to read, the relationship that forms between Ray and Colin is the alt fairytale for the sub/dom age.
It’s fascinating to me all the different forms love can take. Do you ever see two people walking down the street, clearly a couple, and think to yourself, “I wouldn’t have put them together.” The bonds that are forged between two people are unknowable to anyone except those two people. There’s no point in trying to guess what brought them together; why should we care? As long as they’re happy together, that’s all that should matter. Right?
“I always made out to myself that what happened on Box Hill in 1975 … was out of my control. As if I was one of those kidnap victims who become obsessed with their captors — just that it happened very quickly, thanks to Ray’s charisma, so that everything was already decided by the time I first got on the bike behind him.”
This book asks you not to judge. You may be angered by how Ray treats Colin; you may not understand why Colin stays. But he does stay. Colin could leave, and that would be the end of that. But he chooses to stay, to be with Ray; they have cultivated their own kind of love that satisfies both of them in their own ways. It may seem foreign and strange to you and that’s fine. It’s not your life.
Sit back and take it in. Accept it for what it is. You don’t have to like it. What’s the fun in that? Mars-Jones pulls back the curtain on a consenting relationship often degraded. It’s startling and electric. It’ll make the bones in your closet tingle.
Colin doesn’t hold a high opinion of himself. He often feels like a waste of space. An interloper best forgotten. That is until he trips over Ray one night on Box Hill. Ray is a whole other creature. A commanding presence in his leathers, straddling his motorbike. Colin and Ray couldn’t be two different people. But Ray validates Colin’s feelings about himself. He is garbage and Ray thinks so too. Colin isn’t deserving of affection, he’s worthless and Ray treats him as such. What begins as a chance encounter, evolves into something darker and far more ambiguous. At times abusive, at times painful to read, the relationship that forms between Ray and Colin is the alt fairytale for the sub/dom age.
It’s fascinating to me all the different forms love can take. Do you ever see two people walking down the street, clearly a couple, and think to yourself, “I wouldn’t have put them together.” The bonds that are forged between two people are unknowable to anyone except those two people. There’s no point in trying to guess what brought them together; why should we care? As long as they’re happy together, that’s all that should matter. Right?
“I always made out to myself that what happened on Box Hill in 1975 … was out of my control. As if I was one of those kidnap victims who become obsessed with their captors — just that it happened very quickly, thanks to Ray’s charisma, so that everything was already decided by the time I first got on the bike behind him.”
This book asks you not to judge. You may be angered by how Ray treats Colin; you may not understand why Colin stays. But he does stay. Colin could leave, and that would be the end of that. But he chooses to stay, to be with Ray; they have cultivated their own kind of love that satisfies both of them in their own ways. It may seem foreign and strange to you and that’s fine. It’s not your life.
Sit back and take it in. Accept it for what it is. You don’t have to like it. What’s the fun in that? Mars-Jones pulls back the curtain on a consenting relationship often degraded. It’s startling and electric. It’ll make the bones in your closet tingle.
August 7, 2020
A very strange short novel - funny and vivid and perfectly capturing a very particular time and place (1970s UK gay biker subculture!). The writing is delightful - walking a careful tightrope the stops a sometimes heartbreaking story from becoming too bleak. I feel like this is one that would benefit from another read, to try to figure out just how it's all done.
June 9, 2022
the most pathetic protagonist I’ve ever come across … slay
October 26, 2025
#️⃣5️⃣8️⃣3️⃣ Read & Reviewed in 2025 🍩🧁
Date : 🗓️ Monday, October 20, 2025 🎁💐🍝
Word Count📃: 31k Words 🎉🍬✨
— !! 𖦹「 ✦ 🍪 Happy Birthday🎂 ✦ 」✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
My 58th read in "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! :DDDD 👏🍭🍨" October.
5️⃣🌟, tragic gay story 💔💔
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➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗
6 years of sad gay stuff happenin. I'M HOOOOOKED. He is stuck in an abusive relationship and almost no hopeful ending happened. It's such a tragedy as I thiught that the two of them would probably be good for each other at the end but sadly, it didn't happen. Everything isn't ok, everything is just extremely despair enducing and somber. The downfall perspective of Colin is just so heartbreaking but still satisfying at the end? I mean Ray is like, peak abusive hot biker bf but somehow Colin learns from all of the power dynamics and becomes more compassionate and appreciative?? Somehow even in an environment of pure anguish and suffering, people can still find a way to recover and progress in life, and that's why Colin is the best boii 🤌🤌💞💞💞💞💞.
Date : 🗓️ Monday, October 20, 2025 🎁💐🍝
Word Count📃: 31k Words 🎉🍬✨
— !! 𖦹「 ✦ 🍪 Happy Birthday🎂 ✦ 」✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
My 58th read in "IT'S MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!!! :DDDD 👏🍭🍨" October.
5️⃣🌟, tragic gay story 💔💔
——————————————————————
➕➖0️⃣1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣6️⃣7️⃣8️⃣9️⃣🔟✖️➗
6 years of sad gay stuff happenin. I'M HOOOOOKED. He is stuck in an abusive relationship and almost no hopeful ending happened. It's such a tragedy as I thiught that the two of them would probably be good for each other at the end but sadly, it didn't happen. Everything isn't ok, everything is just extremely despair enducing and somber. The downfall perspective of Colin is just so heartbreaking but still satisfying at the end? I mean Ray is like, peak abusive hot biker bf but somehow Colin learns from all of the power dynamics and becomes more compassionate and appreciative?? Somehow even in an environment of pure anguish and suffering, people can still find a way to recover and progress in life, and that's why Colin is the best boii 🤌🤌💞💞💞💞💞.
May 15, 2020
Subtlely shocking / shocking subtlety
Asked to expand on the above:
I thought it was amazing how Mars-Jones so subtly let us know what was going on, and how the narrator doesn't quite see anything problematic with it, even several years later.
But I am not sure whether "subtle" is correct as it is also quite blunt.
Asked to expand on the above:
I thought it was amazing how Mars-Jones so subtly let us know what was going on, and how the narrator doesn't quite see anything problematic with it, even several years later.
But I am not sure whether "subtle" is correct as it is also quite blunt.
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