Review: Other People’s Clothes by Calla Henkel

Georgina Dent

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Imagine a grimy nightclub, floor sticky with spilled alcohol, sweaty bodies too close to one another, the whole scene quite grotty but altogether so intoxicating, atmospheric and exciting that you end up staying until six in the morning and having a pretty good time. That is Calla Henkel’s Other People’s Clothes.

Henkel’s debut novel

Set in Berlin in 2008, Other People’s Clothes follows American art exchange students Hailey and Zoe as they navigate the European art world and come to terms with a much different pace of life. Drugs, alcohol and pretentious parties ensue, but it soon transpires that they are being watched by their landlord, famous crime writer Beatrice Becks, as she bases her newest book on their lives. The girls turn the flat into ‘Beatrice’s’, an incredibly exclusive club within which they throw wild house parties and allow drama, paranoia and jealousy to slowly seep into the floorboards.

Many of the characters are entirely unlikeable, imperfect and obsessed with art and the idea of creating something edgy and meaningful, but it is because of this that they are so fascinating. They all strive to be the most unique and interesting, but in actuality, their efforts are essentially empty and meaningless, as they all morph into different flavours of the same pretentiousness disguised as art. Not one character isn’t intentionally performative in some way, adding to the mystery of it all. When a murder occurs, it becomes impossible to separate what is real and what isn’t. Both the characters and reader are delved into the dark, twisting depths of the narrative that the girls have tried to write for themselves versus reality. And I was so quickly hooked by it. 

Unreliably reliable

Hailey and Zoe’s friendship is gritty and complex right off the bat. Zoe’s best friend Ivy has recently been murdered, and Hailey openly exploits the story for shock value among the narcissistic groups that the two meet in Berlin. The immediate question that comes to mind is ‘why they are friends in the first place?’, but quite simply, they are all that the other has. Hailey speaks German and Zoe doesn’t, so she needs her to communicate in the city. Both girls hate their classes and spend most of their days drinking time away and watching Law and Order. They are declined entry into the same club twice in one night and bond over the rejection and raw vulnerability shared in that moment. Hailey and Zoe are glittering messes. They cling to one another in the unnervingly relatable way that university students do when on their own for the first time in such a new and unfamiliar place. 

“Pop culture was paramount.”

The girls are obsessed with the Amanda Knox case, and the novel really explores the hold that popular culture had over society at the time. Despite being set 14 years ago, this remains prominent – isn’t this still the case? Isn’t the experience of being a young woman still dictated by and revolved around popular culture? Aside from the increased presence of social media since then, everything in this book rang true with me. Hailey pours herself into knowing all there is about celebrities. Gossiping about Amanda Knox, idolising the case, and even wanting to throw a party themed around it. And whilst we have moved on from Amanda Knox since 2009, this grimy obsession with knowing everything about famous people and romanticising toxicity is wildly evident in our culture today.

“Every night you miss in Berlin is a night you miss in Berlin.”

The girls are told this by fellow travellers at a hostel early on in the book, and they adopt it ironically, using it to justify their actions and laugh at the stupidity of the saying. I have actually had conversations with friends about this line, as it really stuck with me in the face of the dark corridors that this book eventually ends up going down.

One of my friends argued that it essentially just means “it is what it is”, but I disagree. “It is what it is” implies that we cannot change what is happening, things merely are what they are, and that’s that. “Every night you miss in Berlin is a night you miss in Berlin”, adds agency. Therefore, it is your choices that have sway over what happens. And that’s the crux of this book. The girls want to have a say in Beatrice’s narrative of them, and in doing so, they dictate what follows, performing their fake life until suddenly everything becomes all too real and their actions have consequences. 

Under the layers

This novel is intense and all-consuming, much like the main characters, and every turn it took gave me whiplash in the best way. I read the majority of it on a cross-country train journey and am not ashamed to say that I audibly gasped on multiple occasions. Henkel writes a deeply unnerving narrative that leaves the reader questioning everything right up until the very last page, and I cannot recommend it enough. I’ve been begging everyone I know to read it, thrusting it upon all my friends, and I wish that I could read it for the first time all over again. 

Essentially, read this book. You won’t regret it.

Featured image courtesy of Tobias Tullius on Unsplash. Image license found here. No changes or alterations were made to this image.