My Dark Vanessa
I have such mixed feelings about this buzzy book about a teenage girl who is sexually abused by her much-older teacher, Strane. There is no question that it’s abuse, but Vanessa’s turmoil over her role in the “relationship” drive the narrative. Jumping back and forth between her teen years and sixteen years later, when the #MeToo movement prompts another girl to come forward with accusations, Vanessa’s life is defined by Strane.
This is a hard book to read–similar to the experience of reading Lolita, which is invoked often. It’s well-written (if a little over-long) but also repulsive and infuriating. Strane’s manipulation of Vanessa is clear, but Russell also helps the reader empathize with Vanessa’s determination to remain an actor in her own life, and not just a victim.
I found this impressive but depressing–it was not an enjoyable reading experience for this stressful time. Recommended for anyone who’s okay with a heavier read.
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Publisher’s Description
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due. Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa, and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it possible that the man she loved as a teenager–and who professed to worship only her–may be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.