Moving through the darkness of sexual abuse
When the victim doesn’t know they are a victim in the first place.
I speak from experience when I say this: it can be hard to know when you are assaulted. I didn’t realize I was until 7 months after it happened. I’d thought of that night as a positive experience; I had a crush on my assaulter both before and after the assault. And honestly? Those feelings didn’t immediately change once I realized what he did to me was assault.
Vanessa Wye understands those feelings. She understands the way victims can romanticize their own abusers and rapists and assaulters. She understands, at least on some subconscious level, that this is a survival technique. Because what is the alternative?
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell tells a story of abuse we don’t often see: that of the victim who doesn’t think of themselves as the victim. The novel shifts between two timelines: 2000 when a 15-year-old Vanessa is in a predatory romantic relationship with her middle-aged high school English teacher, Jacob Strane; and 2017 when another former-student accuses Strane of assault and Vanessa is forced to redefine a relationship she perceived to be consensual.
The book does a wonderful job of illustrating Vanessa’s point-of-view while still giving enough distance so the reader is always aware of what a horrible person Strane is. The reader gets to witness the ways gaslighting and grooming affect Vanessa’s mindset — the kinds of hoops a victim sometimes jumps through in order to excuse their abuser or pin the blame on themselves — without being compelled to believe in her view of events.
What I wasn’t expecting — and what I think is a brilliant decision — is to have the past section of the book extend beyond “the ending” (I use air quotes because they still remain in contact up to 2017) of her relationship with Strane into her life after this traumatic series of events. It fully delves into how Vanessa continues to be shaped by him in both subtle and explicit ways, even when she is not physically around him.
The book does feel like it goes on for just a little too long, especially in the middle, but the clear writing and depth of Vanessa’s character kept me reading well into the night. And I’m sure she will stay in my mind for many more nights to come.
