Review: Down the Drain

Julia Fox is the OG Brat.

Down the Drain: a review

Some books reel us in with relatable storylines and lovable characters. The painful familiarity of situations, both tragic and mundane. Tender words that epitomise our every thought and feeling, smashing through the walls of our hearts and setting up camp in our souls.

Others provide entertainment through escapism. Sequences of events that shock and thrill; mind-blowing storylines that keeping us turning the pages, desperate to know what happens next.

Julia Fox’s 2023 memoir, Down the Drain, somehow manages to uniquely straddle both categories. The depth and weight of her writing, combined with the humility and candour that emanates from the pages, make it impossible not to warm to the 34 year old author. She lays her soul bare, giving a staggeringly honest account of the tumultuous life she’s lived.

I’m about a year late to the Julia Fox obsession party, but I’m now in deep. And it’s a party I never want to leave. Do not let her beauty beguile you - Julia Fox is much more than just a pretty face. Unlike many celebrity memoirs, Fox was adamant in her decision not to use a ghostwriter. And thank goodness she didn’t, for the quality of her writing speaks for itself, which I’m sure will have come as a pleasant surprise to many like me.

She deftly divides the complex and chaotic story of her life - this woman has experienced enough drama to last several lifetimes - into distinct chapters, each one more engrossing than the last, her authentic and unique voice remaining clear throughout. Not only that, but she delivers the narrative with natural pace and a mesmeric quality that has you gasping in shock, laughing out loud and tugging on your heartstrings all in a matter of pages. From her time working as a dominatrix in the dungeon, to her luxe life as a sugar baby, to brutally honest accounts of addiction and a dream-like stint in Louisiana, there’s no shortage of shock factor in this memoir.

Since finishing the book a few weeks ago, she has left an indelible mark on my mind. I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Fox herself, which certainly enhanced the whole experience and intensified my fascination with her. While listening to the audiobook, I felt captivated by her aura, and her famously alluring voice gentle and gradually hooked me in from the very first chapter. I could honestly listen to this woman talk about what she ate for breakfast or how she does her taxes, and be totally mesmerised.

In a world where cleanliness, perfection and order is celebrated and prioritised, Julia Fox’s commitment to freakishness and unabashed creativity is a breath of fresh air. In the recent article for the New York Times linked above, Fox concedes the relief she felt in finally giving herself permission to be her full ‘freakish’ self in adulthood. She also mentions the community of other ‘freaks’ she surrounded herself with for much of her life on the fringes of society in New York, many of whom we get to know in the book.

Fox’s childhood was never simple or easy. It’s fair to say that, from reading her account, she experienced a level of neglect and even some abuse at the hands of her parents for the majority of her upbringing. This pattern of dysfunction led her to meet some of the more influential figures, both good and bad, in her life, and eventually finding solace in the friends she later describes as her ‘chosen family’. This recurring cast of misfit characters provide some of the most jaw-dropping, heartbreaking and hilarious stories throughout the book.

I’m half-convinced that Charli XCX’s Brat was entirely inspired by this book. It all makes sense now - Charli sang, I’m everywhere, I’m so Julia because Julia is the original Brat. Much like Cat Marnell’s How to Murder Your Life, which featured in my Best Books of 2023, there were several points while reading (listening to) Fox share some of the battles she’s had to overcome and the terrifying situations she’s been confronted with, that left me questioning how this woman was still alive today to tell the tale.

My obsession with the actress, model, ex-dominatrix, all-round icon has arguably been slowly burning ever since I saw her in Uncut Gems. I remember practically running to IMDb to find out who this gorgeous girl was, and immediately wanting to know more.

With a name like Julia Fox, it’s hard to believe that this woman was ever destined for anything other than fame and notoriety. By her own admission, she was a ‘hood celebrity’, well-known by those in the party circles of New York, before she appeared on screen. Reportedly, when Fox received Josh Safdie’s script for Uncut Gems, her immediate thought was that he’d been spying on her, as the character so closely resembled her life. Despite being new to acting, and relatively unknown to the world outside of New York, Fox was given the part over far more experienced and well-known names like Jennifer Lawrence and Lady Gaga on the basis of authenticity and similarity to the character for whom she became the muse.

But it’s no secret that what truly catapulted Fox into the zeitgeist was her brief yet viral relationship with Kanye West in early 2022. In her final chapter of Down the Drain, Fox provides her account of the relationship, which seems tame, verging on boring, by that point in the book. While some readers will have bought the book in the hope of finding out juicy details about that particular relationship, to say that they will have got more than they bargained for is an understatement. The events in her past that led up to her 2022 relationship with West make it seem like a footnote on the story of her life.

It’s quite the powerful statement for Fox to give the fans exactly what they wanted while simultaneously proving how little this 2 month fling really mattered in the grand scheme of her life. But nevertheless, she provided a masterclass on how to reclaim her own story. After being lambasted by the media, and even by her peers, Fox took control of her own narrative, not for the first time, penning this tell-all memoir which proves to critics that her dating history is the least interesting thing about her.

I feel that I have to mention the above since-disproven Twitter shitpost which spread the false rumour that Kanye didn’t like when Julia “went goblin-mode”. I would consider this the start of a cultural movement towards embracing our inner goblins, if only among those ‘chronically online’, considering how many ‘goblin mode’ memes it spawned. There’s even a Wikipedia page, and surely Oxford English Dictionary making ‘goblin mode’ its Word of the Year in 2022 indicates a transition to the mainstream.

Besides, even though the exact quote was a fabrication, having read the details of the relationship, I wouldn’t say it’s entirely inaccurate. It would seem that her freakish, goblin-like behaviour was in fact what led to the demise of the relationship. Keeping in mind some degree of bias from Fox in her depiction of the relationship, it’s hard to feel anything but sympathy and respect for her part in it. Despite public perception, she claims that the relationship began on genuine grounds, at least from her side.

Without giving away too much - as I really do urge everyone to read the book - it’s clear that ‘the artist’ (the alias Fox uses for West) was only interested in using her as a puppet in order to get back at his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. It’s interesting to note that Kim, who was rumoured to have been in the running against Fox for the part in Uncut Gems, represents everything that Julia doesn’t. If Julia Fox is a freak, Kim Kardashian is the very model of carefully-curated insta-perfection and glamour. Fox represents chaos, grit, authenticity, uniqueness of character and creativity, while Kim Kardashian is the epitome of artificial, manufactured beauty and blandness. Kanye’s choice to pursue Fox corroborates the theory that we all tend to rebound from relationships with people who are the polar opposite of our last partners, and while Julia has been everywhere for the past few years, it’s no coincidence that the Kardashians have faded into the background, losing a lot of the cultural relevance they once held. The world was hungry for the Brat era and everything that came with it. Culture works on a pendulum, we know this. We were thirsting for something different, and Julia was the figurehead for it.

She harnessed her own notoriety, demonstrating the power of capitalising on virality and controversy to reach your goals. I’m keeping an eye out for anything and everything Julia Fox gives to the world from now on, and truly believe she’s well on her way to becoming a household name.