My Dark Vanessa (Paperback)
KATE ELIZABETH RUSSELL (author)Published: 21/01/2021
Tackling the contentious issue of sexual abuse with unflinching enquiry and emotional complexity, My Dark Vanessa interrogates the blurred lines between consent and manipulation and how both memory and context can shift alarmingly over time.
Shortlisted for the Swansea University Dylan Thomas Prize 2021
All he did was fall in love with me and the world turned him into a monster.
An era-defining novel about the relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her teacher.
Vanessa Wye was fifteen-years-old when she first had sex with her English teacher.
She is now thirty-two and in the storm of allegations against powerful men in 2017, the teacher, Jacob Strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student.
Vanessa is horrified by this news, because she is quite certain that the relationship she had with Strane wasn't abuse. It was love. She's sure of that.
Forced to rethink her past, to revisit everything that happened, Vanessa has to redefine the great love story of her life - her great sexual awakening - as rape. Now she must deal with the possibility that she might be a victim, and just one of many.
Nuanced, uncomfortable, bold and powerful, My Dark Vanessa goes straight to the heart of some of the most complex issues our age.
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
ISBN: 9780008342289
Number of pages: 384
Weight: 280 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 25 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
‘A hard story to read and a harder one to put down … a package of dynamite’ Stephen King ‘The book that scared Weinstein’ Metro ‘Compulsive. I burned through the first half in such a fever that I lost sleep, I missed meals … a lightning rod’ Washington Post ‘A brilliant and stunning debut … utterly truth-rattling, humane in its clarity and chilling in its resonance. An absolute must-read’ Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl ‘A skilled, terrifying depiction of grooming … we should all read it’ Marian Keyes ‘Once in a while, a book comes along that consumes your waking hours, unmoors you from your lived reality, grips the very core of you and doesn’t let go. My Dark Vanessa is that book’ Esquire ‘Clever, unsettling … this novel stands out for its elusiveness, its exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power’ New Yorker ‘The #MeToo novel that’s as gripping as any thriller’ Grazia ‘Gripping and unsettling… a bracingly uncompromising book. It will doubtless be devoured with an ache of recognition by large numbers of women. But it really ought to be read by men’ Economist ‘Superb … a book that asks what we have lost and gained in an era that has revolutionised the way we think about sex and power’ Observer ‘Addictively disturbing’ Red Magazine
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Very few books rattle me the way his book did. It generated a range of emotions – anger, despair, frustration, love and really packs a punch for a debut novel.
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“Powerful beyond words”
A book to certainly make you think. It is as compelling as it is devastating. I found it incredibly powerful, and unsettling at the same time.The writing is exquisite and mesmerising yet in the same breath... More
“Arresting, challenging and heart breaking”
At 15, Vanessa was in a relationship with a teacher three times her age. Now aged 32, she is forced by current events and the social climate to reevaluate what she regards as the great love story of her life.
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