Book Review: Leutogi by H.T. Boyd

May 2001. Manhattan socialite Egret Covello is desperate to be skinny. When she hears about an exotic tapeworm in the Australian Outback that can make her lose weight quickly, she decides to fly to the country with her teenage son, Noah. As the time nears for her to encounter the stomach parasite, Egret is forced to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to get the perfect body.

Egret looks upon her reflection and tries to see a high-society knock-out. Someone who fits one; an emaciated bag-of-bones beach babe with pin-up curves and a high-volume Jennifer in sandy blond. She tries to hallucinate the self-image of the forever seventeen-year-old fitness model with sparkling blue eyes and the muted features of a china doll. Skinny skinny. Scary skinny.

Leutogi is a hell of a book! 39-year-old Egret is divorced and alone in her posh apartment. Supported by her TV personality ex-husband’s alimony, she spends her days having brunches, going to the gym, reading self-help books, and counting calories. She tries all kinds of diets though they inevitably fail. When Egret looks into a mirror, she sees everything wrong with her body. It’s desperately sad that her warped perspective carries all her neuroses, dark thoughts, and self-loathing. I found Egret to be prickly and cold towards others, yet the book somehow makes me sympathize with her. It’s a testament to the writing that it made me feel for characters that on the surface seem awful.

When Egret hears about a tapeworm that can make her lose weight while still eating all the food she wants, she immediately travels to the Australian Outback. She has no choice but to bring her teenage son, Noah, who usually lives with her ex-husband. Noah is 15 years old with microcephaly – a medical condition where he has a smaller head than normal. While Egret clearly loves him, she treats him as if he’s fragile. This causes friction due to Noah’s desire to be independent. Their fraught relationship causes a lot of tense conversations and emotional moments. Their cheerful Australian tour guide, Hudson, provides some much-needed levity. I loved the beautiful road trip setting of the Outback during their travels before everything went wrong.

The book offers a vivid portrayal of body dysmorphia, disordered eating and mental illness compounded by the toxic culture of superficial beauty in high society. But it also explores the unresolved trauma of motherhood, the breakdown of a marriage, and a parent’s yearning for their child’s future. There are gruesome body horror scenes along with multiple descriptions of binge eating that horrified me.  I will never look at peanut butter the same way again! The story shows the cost of Egret’s choices, where humanity and desire clash to a devastating conclusion.

A visceral and unflinching journey through the mind of a woman searching for perfection, Leutogi is undoubtedly one of my favourite reads this year.

I received a copy from BookSirens for review purposes.

About the author: H.T. Boyd

Photo by Annie Spratt