My Dark Vanessa: A Novel

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell: Russell presents the story of Vanessa Wye, a fifteen-year-old who becomes ensnared in the web cast by devious, psychologically wily forty-something English teacher, Jacob Strane, when Vanessa enrolls in an exclusive New England boarding school. The story of Vanessa’s psychological destruction is dark, disturbing, and disheartening but insightfully accurate. Vanessa is sharply precocious but socially insecure as are many bright adolescents. Strane is sufficiently knowledgeable to recognize that Vanessa is a potential accomplice for a sexual liaison. Russell’s portrayal of the careful psychological grooming of the victim by the predator and the culpability of the prey is spot-on. Also illuminating is the portrayal of the romantic need and emotional power of the youthful victim that are energized when the victim, Vanessa, is forced to protect her lover and her own view of the romance when the improper liaison finally comes to light. Many readers will (and have) find fault with Russell’s Vanessa being disappointed in Vanessa’s inability to see and accept how badly she was used and to admit how despicable the behavior of her lover. Some readers also complain that Russell presents no admirable characters---not her parents, not her school administrators, not her other classmates, not her post-high school boyfriend. They miss the reality in such cases of pedophilic accomplishment. The youthful victim is a victim because of the perfect storm of events and key figures in the victim’s milieu. There is, in fact, one shining knight in Vanessa’s eventual resurrection and that is Ruby, Vanessa’s psychiatrist. Ruby is aware that Vanessa’s recovery will take time, time to develop trust, time to strengthen what little positive self-image and ego strength still remain, and the ability to make a timely but necessary confrontation of Vanessa’s wall of defense. The end of the book gives hope that Ruby and Vanessa will find success in opening a new and brighter chapter in Vanessa’s life. Russell’s ability to capture the psycho-sexual hold that the pedophilic predator has on his/her victim makes for the accuracy and the allure of her telling. Two passages at the end of the book aptly illustrate her writing power. Vanessa is twenty-something, her life a mess, cannot successfully manage a mundane job, she hoards, her apartment and her personal appearance disheveled, has many meaningless sexual hook-ups (all often typically the result of a disastrous adolescent sexual experience), and one day spots Strane taking a classroom of students on an art museum tour: I’m twenty-five when it happens. Walking to work, wearing my black suit and black flats, I cross Congress Street and there he is, standing with a dozen kids in front of the art museum, teenagers, students, mostly girls. I watch from a distance, clutching my purse to my side. He lets the museum door close behind him and I go to work, sit at the concierge desk and imagine him moving through the rooms, trailing the bright-haired girls. In my mind, I follow along behind, don’t let him out of my sight. This, I think is probably what I’ll do for the rest of my life: chase after him and what he gave me. It’s my fault. I was supposed to have grown out of it by now. He never promised to love me forever. The next night he calls. It’s late, on my walk home from work, when the only lit-up windows downtown are the bars and pizza-by-the-slice places. The sight of his name on the screen makes my knees give out. I have to lean against a building when I answer. The sound of him grabs me by the throat. “Did I see you?” he asks. “Or was it a ghost?” He starts calling weekly, always late at night. We talk a little about who I am now—the hotel job, the never-ending parade of boys, my mom’s pursed-lip disappointment in me, my dad’s diabetes and bad heart—but mostly we talk about who I used to be. Together we remember the scenes in the little office behind the classroom, at his house, in the station wagon parked on the side of an old logging road, the rolling blueberry barren where I climbed on top of him, the chickadee call and apiary drone drifting in through the open car widow. Our details pool together. He and I re-create it vividly, too vividly. When he moves away from remembering me and begins to talk about the girls in his classes, I follow him. He describes the pale underbellies of their arms when they raise their hands, the tendrils that escape their ponytails, the flush that travels down their necks when he tells them they’re precious and rare. He says it’s unbearable, the way they drip with beauty. He tells me he calls them up to his desk, his hand on their knees. “I pretend they’re you,” he says, and my mouth waters as though a bell’s been rung, signaling a long-buried craving. I roll onto my stomach, shove a pillow between my legs. Keep going, don’t stop. Russell’s writing is almost lyrical, and you have to stop and remind yourself that she is describing the thoughts of a pedophile and the now indelible mind/body entrancement he has worked on the psyche of his victim. Richard R.

This is a big book, a lot to take in. I still feel it simmering inside of me as I try to decide if I liked it or not. From the beginning, Strane reminded me of so many men I’ve known. The way he masterfully makes her feel special and different reminds me of the lines I have fallen for. Her quest, determination, to be different, older, wiser, something that the other girls are not - is also incredibly relatable. I believe what compels Vanessa to continue to pursue Strane is a mixture of not being accepted by her own peers and the desire so many of us have to be grown up before we really are. The way she continually reassures herself that the relationship was good for her, that he was good to her, that she was a willing participant is heartbreaking. I think Vanessa also speaks to the reality that so many women have truly simply accepted the fact that we will be groped, touched, spoken to, and harassed by men. In so many ways she just accepts this reality. When she’s discussing with Taylor what happened it’s almost as if she’s jealous. She needs to make sure that she’s the only one Strane had a relationship with. That he actually loved her. She blames Taylor for coming forward. She diminishes Taylor’s experience because it was just a knee touch. It’s innocuous to her. She honestly believes Taylor is overreacting. More infuriating to me is when I find myself agreeing with Vanessa. What is the big deal? Was it more? Is Taylor hiding something? If it was just a knee touch, what is the big deal? It further pushes me to realize that I have simply accepted that men will do these things and it’s nothing more than an annoyance. I also sense that Vanessa resents Taylor’s ability to recognize herself as a victim. Vanessa has a very relatable struggle with this. She said yes, right. She agreed to it. She even, at times, pursued it. How can she be a victim? She needs Strane because in so many ways, he is all she’s ever had. She likes the power she feels when she’s with him. Power isn’t anything she’s ever felt as a direct result of being an outcast with her peers. She is often confused by the power dynamic in her relationship with Strane. She frequently doesn’t know who is in control. Strane is so well written. He’s manipulative, he gaslights, he is controlling. He is the embodiment of SO MANY MEN. He is only physically attracted to her (while she’s still young.) He doesn’t love her. He doesn’t protect her. He thinks for her. He condescends her. He often rapes her. He uses her and throws her away when it’s not convenient for him. She’s his Real Doll. I hate him. I thoroughly hate him. It’s interesting watching Vanessa dance between loving the attention and hating the sex. She wants him to want her but she has out of body experiences when he touches her. She plays with this with Henry, her professor. She needs him to desire her but she doesn’t want to consummate the relationship. Henry, at least, has the good sense and decency to abstain from pursing her. Once again, however, we see another manipulative male, trying to lay the ground work, asking for her to pursue him so he can have her. He’s a softer version of Strane. The men in this book are written incredibly realistically. Henry is no hero. Finally, the book ends just when Vanessa begins to realize who she actually is without Strane. In so many ways, Strane, was the most important person in her life. Her relationship with him did define her though she constantly fought that truth. I hope Vanessa truly can find out who she is and I wish her all of the happiness in the world. One of the most compelling aspects of this book is the question of whether or not victims have a responsibility to share their stories. Vanessa doesn’t want to pile onto the MeToo movement. I find myself completely understanding her feelings on that. Her story is her story. She doesn’t have to share it with the world to also feel compassion for other victims. That said, i don’t believe she actually feels any compassion or empathy for Strane’s other victims because they didn’t suffer enough. He didn’t go far enough and if he had, I do believe she would have felt replaced, betrayed, and jealous. This book also asks us to determine what actually constitutes abuse. How far does it have to go? Again, we’ve been so conditioned to not only expect but accept some (not all) of these behaviors. They’re “normal” behaviors. I appreciate the complexity of this novel and the struggle Vanessa goes through. I don’t always like Vanessa but I find her incredibly relatable. I may not have had an affair with my high school teacher but I certainly have experienced a lot of creepy men, especially as a teen and when I was in my early 20s. Vanessa’s story is unique in that it goes so far over the edge that it falls off the cliff but I think most women have had experiences with adult men who, if nothing else, touched their knee, massaged their neck, had conversations with them on AOL or other exposures. I will ruminate on this book for a long time. It wasn’t entertaining but it was thought provoking.

My Dark Vanessa is a story about a teenage girl who engages in an “affair” with her high school English teacher and the rippling effects it has on her life. Vanessa struggles the entire book (both in the past and present day) to decipher where she falls on the victim/participant/perpetrator scale. You can call it denial. You can call it naivety or rationalizations, but the point is, Vanessa exists in a limbo of uncertainty about what her role in the whole thing was. Personally, I found Vanessa to be a complex character (I’ve seen this questioned in other reviews), but I appreciate Russell’s nuanced take on what it means to be a victim and how not all traumas are responded to in the same way. With the rise of the Me Too era, there’s been an exposure of not only the injustices and abuse many people face, but the variety of ways this abuse occurs and how the victims respond. There’s been long held beliefs about how victims should behave, what they look like, sound like, think like. My Dark Vanessa challenges those notions. Additionally, Russelll’s approach to Strane (the teacher) provided interesting insights into the mind of an abuser and not only the methods he uses to groom his victims, but the ways in which he justifies his actions to both himself and his victims. His subtle manipulations. His self-deprecation and simultaneous admissions of guilt while denying culpability are fascinating. It allowed me to see things from Vanessa’s perspective, how she would fall for it. Yes, it gets to a point where she sounds a bit pathetic as an adult, even she admits to that. But Russell effectively demonstrates why it’s necessary for Vanessa to continue lying to herself. None of this would be possible, Vanessa and the situation wouldn’t be believable, unless Strane himself was a nuanced character. He isn’t a stereotypical villain. He’s got a softness to him, a vulnerability that he uses to his advantage. I particularly appreciated that he wasn’t handsome or even particularly charismatic. He was simply good at what he did. Vanessa’s simultaneous attraction and disgust for him show her struggle within. What I appreciate about this book is that Vanessa isn’t just a naïve girl. She isn’t purely an innocent victim. She’s smart, a real person with complexities and insecurities and life experiences that make her ripe for the picking given the aligned circumstances she finds herself in. She’s able to recognize her own culpability in the situation while recognizing that she isn’t really to blame, yet blame she does. This is common for victims of abuse, yet it isn’t a commonality that is often recognized or thought about when these things are discussed. Vanessa’s version of self-blame is more exaggerated than other victims but so is her willing participation and that’s entirely the point. Yes, she is manipulated, but there’s a part of her that knows this and a part that doesn’t care, chooses it. The book is analyzing why she chooses of course, but to write her off as merely a victim, as merely a hopeless cause who can’t understand how she was duped is missing part of the point. These issues and situations are not black and white. There are a large number of factors at play and this book does a good job of delving into them. This is one of those books I couldn’t put down and believe me, that is rare for me. I breezed through it. I felt connected to the character and the story. It’s an easy read as far as the language/writing go. It’s well written, but simple language. This isn’t poetic/lyrical (which I tend to prefer), but it’s still introspective enough to not have to rely on pretty turns of phrases to make the point. I’d consider it literary fiction that borders on pop fiction. It toes the line quite nicely without dumbing things down too much. It’s dark, but not overwhelmingly depressing. I’d definitely recommend it.

This dark, introspective contemporary fiction novel ranked somewhere between 3 and 3.5 Stars for me. SUMMARY Fifteen year old Vanessa Wye is feeling a little off as she begins her sophomore year at Browick, a small, prestigious Maine boarding school. She is a bit introverted, the kind of person who really only needed one best friend. Her freshman year, that bff was her roommate Jenny, but she and Jenny had a falling out toward the end of the year. Now Vanessa finds herself basically starting over, in need of new friends, missing her parents, feeling insecure and awkward. Luckily, her English class is a bright spot in her life. Her teacher, Mr. Strane, loves her writing, her input and opinions. He invites her to join a literary club he sponsors and shows a real interest in her. He picks books for her to read, invites her to his office to discuss these books and he listens to her. He “sees” her. Really sees her. Lucky, lucky Vanessa to have that kind of attention from a mentor who cares so much! I'm sure you can guess where all this attention is leading. Yep, 40 something year old Mr. Strane turns out to be a pervy manipulative creep. So skilled at grooming his victim that he makes her feel like it's all her own fault. The story follows Vanessa through the beginning of the “relationship” how it began and how it affected her life but the real focus is on Vanessa trying to come to terms with the reality of what actually happened. How over the years she starts to change the lens she sees it through. As a fifteen year old, she saw it as a great love story, but as a thirty year old woman, after years of wrestling with it she has to rewrite her narrative. WHAT I LOVED As a fifteen year old, I never even thought of my teachers as actual people, let alone EVER considered one as a potential boyfriend. Particularly, fairly unattractive man in his forties. In fact, there was a teacher at my high school who spent some time in prison due to his to his interest in fifteen and sixteen year old girls. The idea of any girls being interested in HIM was baffling to me. Granted, up until that point, he was considered the "cool" teacher. He had paper covering a wall in his classroom and anyone could stop by his room to write their thoughts on his wall. As a fifteen year old, I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Now, as an adult and knowing what I know about him, I see it in the same light as a stranger in a white van handing out candy to kids. This story does an excellent job of letting the reader understand how something like that could have happened. How the abuser very carefully chooses a target, always someone who is struggling in some way, then slowly builds a trusting relationship with that person. How the lines are ever so gradually blurred until they are crossed. It seems very plausible. That part of very well told. Don't get me wrong, it's extremely disturbing, but it's well written. Vanessa's “fifteen year oldness” is raw and real. At that age, kids think they are mature and that they understand the world but there is so much they cannot comprehend yet. They don't have the life experience to understand what they do not yet understand. They can be so grown up one minute and such children in the next. Author Kate Elizabeth Russell absolutely nailed the emotional turmoil of that stage in life. The relationship between Vanessa and her parents rang very true. She loved them but at the same time was annoyed by them. She lied and lied to them about everything in her life. Although she denied it and begged her mother not to do anything her inappropriate relationship with Mr. Strane, she secretly wished her mother would just do whatever needed to be done and fix it all for her. So complicated and so real life. I loved Ruby, the therapist. She was a reality check and had some of the best lines. WHAT I DIDN'T LOVE Based on the review so far, it seems this book has a lot of positive feedback. To me, 3 Stars is not bad, it's a decent rating. A 5 Star rating is exceptional and rare. A 4 Star means I loved it, it may have had a few areas to critique but overall, pretty great. 3 Stars means it was good but not great. This book had moments of great but I had a few issues with it. The subject matter is exceptionally dark. A fifteen year old girl being groomed for sexual abuse by a man in his forties, who happens to be a well respected teacher. I was not expecting a happy story and it was not a happy story. But my real problem was that the middle of the story moved painfully slowly. There were times when I was so tired of the book going nowhere, I just wanted it to be over. I didn't see Vanessa really ever having a happy ending, so it just became painful and tedious to go on and on. That slowness killed it for me.

Take a look at the cover of “My Dark Vanessa.” (Go on. Look.) Now, look again. Reeaally look. Longer, this time. Is it me? Or does the photo not just say it all? Personally, I find the stark image of the woman’s face to be one of the saddest, most hauntingly beautiful photographs I have ever seen. Her melancholy expression instantly grabs one’s attention; her evident pain draws the observer in. It’s stunning – and it so artfully, wordlessly captures the devastating essence of Kate Elizabeth Russell’s debut novel. The narrative recounts the story of Vanessa, who at age 15, begins an illicit seven-year affair with her 42-year-old Literature teacher, Jacob Strane. Through the utilization of dual timelines, the novel essentially has two starting points. The year 2000, at the inception of Vanessa’s relationship with Strane; and the year 2017, at the height of the #MeToo era when Vanessa is forced to reexamine the affair under a more critical light as multiple allegations of abuse by Strane surface to the forefront. She has no choice but to consider anew the culpability of Strane and the contributions of her own actions. To say that I enjoyed “My Dark Vanessa” is a bit of a misnomer. For how could I possibly enjoy a tale of a pedophile abusing a 15-year-old girl? Because I didn’t. Yet, I did. Horrendous subject matter aside, the novel is a page turner. It is excellently written. It is compelling and powerful. But reading it is also an extremely dark, sexually graphic, heartbreaking, and emotionally grueling experience. It’s intentionally so. Russell aims for readers to feel discomfited. She wants us to feel outraged and unnerved as we behold the abuse of Vanessa on the page. She fearlessly shows us the how and the why of it. And the story rattles us to the core. Because the novel just feels REAL. It reads authentically. I cannot imagine finding a more honest fictional description of an abusive relationship between a teenage girl and an adult man than the one laid before us in “My Dark Vanessa.” We see how Strane chooses Vanessa with purpose and how he grooms her. We view Strane’s manipulation of Vanessa’s feelings, how he expertly reels her in. We observe the formation of a father-daughter bond between them. We bear witness to Strane gaslighting Vanessa and the blame he places on her shoulders, to the point where she can no longer trust her memories and does not know what to believe. We watch Vanessa repeatedly be raped by Strane while he disguises the abuse as love. Make no mistake. None of what happens to Vanessa is her fault. Not one bit. She is a child when it all begins. She is taken advantage of by an extremely sick man. Period. End of discussion. And here is where, as a reader, frustration is felt. Because Vanessa doesn’t recognize the abuse. She is symptomatically blind to it, years later, even at the age of 32. She fully believes she is an active, willing participant. The initiator, even. She determinedly clings to Strand and the relationship, considers him to be her one true love. Every fiber of her being defends him. And no. Strane never rapes her. Not according to Vanessa. She wants it. Needs it. Begs for it. “‘I can’t lose the thing I’ve held on to for so long. You know?’ My face twists up from the pain of pushing it out. ‘I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that.’ ‘I know,’ she says. ‘Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?’ I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide-open empathy. ‘It’s my life,’ I say. ‘This has been my whole life.’” It’s unbelievably sad how the abuse does, in fact, frame Vanessa’s entire life. It affects her family, her adult romantic relationships, her friendships. The psychological and emotional damage Strane inflicts on Vanessa is permanent and unwavering. She is a fractured woman, with sharp, jagged edges. “My Dark Vanessa” is a novel that is difficult to fully, wholeheartedly recommend due to the subject matter and graphic nature of the story. I recognize that not every reader will be able to tolerate it. But I believe it is an important novel and should be read by those who can mentally endure it. Vanessa’s story will widen your eyes and cause your mouth to gape open in horror. It will churn your stomach. You will long to wrap yourself in nothing but warmth, light, and happiness once you finish reading it. But you will likely neither regret, nor ever forget, the time you spent with Vanessa. I don’t. I won’t. Not one single minute of it. I think you will find it to be time well spent, reading a story well told.

Such an insightful depiction of what grooming entails and how it appears. He singles her out, makes her feel special, and tells her how mature and unique she is compared to other girls her age. My skin literally crawled when he was telling her she's in charge. You, as the reader, can obviously see and hear through the disgusting, predatory stuff he says. Still, you're also viewing it through the perspective of a 15-year-old girl and a traumatized, maladjusted woman with a crater inside her that he left. And Jesus, she portrays both so horrifyingly well. She's a young girl; of course, she loves the idea of being special and of a teacher liking her. She's unable to see his gradual testing of boundaries and revealing more of his pedophilic nature as he determines it's safe and she's under his control. And she so frustratingly is. An excellent, eye-opening 10/10 read. So well written. But I don't think | will be able to pick this book up again. it made me think of the lyrics in hard times by Ethel Cain... "I'm tired of you still tied to me" "Hide me there under the leaves. Nine going on eighteen" "you're still the good guy I'll make pretend." "I was too young to notice that some types of love could be bad"

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book, I bought a copy for my Kindle. Story (4/5): The story goes from past to present as Vanessa tries to navigate the beginning of an affair with her teacher (she is 15, he is 42) and the eventual fallout from it. The story is engaging and pulls you forward. You are constantly wondering what decisions the 2017 Vanessa will make and wondering how the 2000 Vanessa got into this strange relationship to begin with. It is a bit confusing at times as to what exactly the other students are accusing Strane of and seeing things through Vanessa’s eyes is intriguing. Vanessa is constantly justifies a lot of her actions and Strane’s actions with explanations she finds completely logical. Characters (4/5): The complexity of the characters is what makes this book. Vanessa is obviously permanently scarred from her time with Strane but she also seems like she had issues before she met him. She continues to seek out somewhat dangerous and illicit relationships. She has convinced herself that she chose her relationship with Strane. Strane is obviously creepy and his manipulation of Vanessa is masterfully done, but the author does a decent job of making him a bit grey as well. It’s never really clear whether his relationship with Vanessa was special to him. He never seems to get in quite as deep with other students as he did with Vanessa. There seems to be some mutual self-destruction behavior between the two that add to the overtly pedophilic tendencies that Strane has. While the characters are well done and intriguing to read about, I didn’t really like any of them. Vanessa is frustrating in her conviction that everything is fine, even when it’s obviously not and her continued self destructive tendencies are annoying. Strane is just flat out creepy. Some of the decisions Vanessa’s parents make are ridiculous and really enable her continued delusions. Setting (4/5): The setting here is fine but, aside from the fact it takes place in a high school level boarding school, not really the driver behind the story. Writing Style (4/5): I liked the way the story switches back and forth between the past and the present. We do tend to spend a lot more time in the past. The book was easy to read and engaging. The story felt very unfinished to me and the ending wasn’t all that satisfying. In general while I was engaged in the story, I felt a bit let down and frustrated by how everything was wrapped up. My Summary (4/5): Overall this was an interesting read that kept me engaged. I’ve read a lot of weird stuff so (while this wasn’t a fun or comfortable read) I didn’t find it all that sensationalist or shocking. It definitely doesn’t leave you feeling happy but more slightly nauseous at the things these characters did to each other. I was disappointed in how things were wrapped up, but it did match the non-committal tone of the rest of the story very well. This was decently written and I plan on checking out some of Russell’s other books at some point.

the prose is stunning. it truly knocks the wind out of you how something can be phrased so simply, so light, and yet send your entire day reeling. i wanted to fall into this book. i wanted to stop reading when it nauseated me. i wanted to call in sick to work and finish in one sitting. i didn't want it to end. the last words in this complex, exquisite story made me immediately burst into tears. there was not a single moment where i wished for more detail about a different character. the story is vanessa's and hers alone. we see it through her eyes. for better or for worse, we are in it with her. we see what she saw, what she remembered of those (besides strane) who made a deep enough mark on her to leave an impression. the details given about other characters are minute, carefully chosen. they paint sincere details that provide shocking depth to minor characters that don't require much to serve their purpose in the novel, their purpose to vanessa. it was not too long. it did not feel repetitive or have a lull. this story consumed over fifteen years of vanessa's life. she struggled with what happened in a confusing, messed up, imperfect way. for better for for worse, we went on that ride with her. we're taken through such an intimate, painful, sometimes borderline thrilling journey, and russell does a beautiful job grappling with the myriad of feelings you may experience as a victim. was it my fault? did i ask for it? did i deserve it? if i'm being blamed, could it have been even a little bit me? if it was me, was it because i liked it? because i wanted it? will i make it out alive? if you've made it here after the ort*z essay, please call to mind ort*z's initial point: racism and glass ceilings in the publishing industry are a disgusting, rampant problem. yes, perhaps other books discussing abuse may not have gotten the same hype MDV received. that, in part, may be due to a white woman telling this story. that is certainly an issue. we can't package abuse to be palatable if it is coming from the "right" place, the place we feel is most accessible, relatable, marketable. what is a bigger issue is the conversation of a plagiarism that did not happen eclipsing a stunning debut that will surely stick with you as long as you have memories to grasp. it's a bigger issue to force a survivor to out themselves to attain some sort of depraved credibility because you assumed she couldn't write her version of an abuse narrative. it's an issue to hide when you're in the wrong and refocus the conversation because you don't feel like facing the blowup it causes. take ownership. several times when i read this book, i needed to put it down and stare into middle distance to really digest what i'd read. i'm glad i kept coming back. i had to. it was a like having a warm blanket wrapped around your shoulders after hearing horrible news. it was so inviting and wonderful while turning your gut in revulsion. i hope you pick up a copy. i hope you read it when you're ready. i hope you find empathy. i hope you find healing. i hope we get more from russell soon, but if fifteen years is what it takes to bring something else crafted as precariously as my dark vanessa, i'll see you in 2035.

This book really got to me. How further I got into the story how more my perspective of the character changed and my opinion on various topics. I kept thinking about it for days after I finished it. I think its amazing.

good

Une édition de qualité pour un roman bouleversant que je recommande...pas à tout le monde...mais que je recommande quand même.

I really loved this book.

I liked it from the start. It guides you through Vanessa’s terrible experience and her slow and painful recovery. Excellent!