As we've come to expect from an Irvine Welsh hero, Lucy Brennan, the narrator of The Sex Lives of Siamese Twins, is an unrepentant sadist and narcissist. A fitness trainer in the bikini-clad, abobsessed world of South Beach, Miami, she becomes an unlikely hero when she disarms a gunman who has chased two men in front of her car on the highway. Lucy's exploit makes her a star on local news and inspires infatuation in a witness to the incident, the overweight, pathologically lonely Lena Sorensen. Lena tracks Lucy down the following day to schedule a personal training session.
At this point, the reader anticipates a stalking narrative. And when Lena turns out to be an artist who constructs distorted human figures from animal bones, our suspicions seem to be confirmed. But it's Lucy who gradually becomes obsessed with Lena, and specifically with carving the fat off her body. When Lena continues to gobble key lime pies on the sly, Lucy's tactics become increasingly abusive, while her interest in Lena grows perversely sexual. At last, losing patience, she drugs Lena and imprisons her in an empty apartment building. Fed by her captor on blueberries and protein shakes, with only a treadmill and a home gym for company, Lena at last loses weight. She is chained to a pillar, she is defecating into a bucket but she looks fantastic.
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