My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell

This book had been on my list for a long time, probably since it came out in 2020. I must have added it because it got really good reviews, but I wasn't really interested in reading it. From what little I knew, it was a story about abuse of power. It definitely wasn't going to be light reading.

And it wasn't at all. But that's the only aspect of this book that didn't surprise me, I think.

Summary

Vanessa recounts her abusive relationship with her English teacher, which began when she was 15 and he was 42. She tells us what happened at the time, then 17 years later, as the #MeToo movement takes the world by storm and other girls who were abused by the teacher denounce him in the media.

However, Vanessa refuses to testify. She insists that he did not abuse her, that he loved her, and that she consented.

Which isn't entirely false. But it's certainly not true either.

Impressions

As I mentioned, I expected this book to be heavy going. But I didn't expect it to read like a thriller, or to be so accurate, touching, and nuanced.

Thriller

Vanessa, the young student who has a sexual relationship with her English teacher, is the narrator. So we get everything, from start to finish: all the external events and actions that lead to this relationship and all the young girl's intimate thoughts. It is clear that she is attracted to the teacher, that she flirts with him, that she is incredibly touched by his compliments, that she feels grown up, different from the others, and proud to have a relationship with a man who seems to be swooning over her. We also see everything the teacher says to manipulate her, and from our external perspective, we can clearly see that this is not a love story, but a story of abuse.

It's incredibly frustrating, and you can't help but keep reading to find out what happens next. You want to shake Vanessa by the shoulders when you see her telling everyone that what she experienced with her teacher was a love story, when she calls him again 17 years later to relive memories with him, when, at 15, she takes the blame and accepts all the consequences to protect him when the rumors of their relationship become too strong. We would so love to see him go to prison. We turn the pages ferociously, hoping for this outcome.

Right

I also didn't expect such an accurate and touching story, because we see Vanessa's ambivalence. We see that she's not completely comfortable with him, that she realizes she knows nothing about him, that she has sex when she doesn't really want to, that she sometimes wonders if she's being raped. We see her anger towards him, her insecurity, and her loneliness. We end up understanding, along with her, that her insistence that her story was a beautiful one is an attempt to convince herself. She was so young when it happened that it left a lasting mark on her. What's more, she knew almost nothing else; the professor's hold over her was too strong. So if, almost twenty years later, she changes her mind about such a formative event, who is she?

Nuanced

I have never read such a nuanced piece on the subject. Not nuanced in terms of the guy's morality (he has none, he's a disgusting man, thank you very much. Enough with the empathy for poor men who can't control their penises). But nuanced in terms of the girl's experience.

It's true that she was partially consenting. It's true that she had very strong feelings for this man. It's understandable that she would disagree when told outright that she was a victim of abuse. But it's also true that she wasn't the one who initiated the relationship, despite what her teacher later tried to make her believe. It is true that she was too young to understand the implications of what was happening. And it is true that what she wanted, in fact, was recognition and love. Not sex.

I've already mentioned this, but “love” stories between teenage girls and much older men make my hair stand on end. I'm thinking of TheLover by Marguerite Duras andt The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker. These two books have been very successful despite the fact that they portray the sexual attraction of men to impressionable young girls as romance. It's beyond me, because in my eyes, anyone who has experienced this kind of thing knows immediately that it's nonsense. Nevertheless, these authors, whether out of ignorance or calculation, use their reputation to spread the false and devastating idea that “love has no age limit.”

And then I read a book like My Dark Vanessa, and I remember that we are still moving in the right direction. Eloquent women who have experienced these kinds of relationships can talk about them with the sensitivity needed to dispel persistent myths, denounce abusers, and understand the complexity of young girls' experiences.

It's not an easy read. I felt disgusted most of the time (it's not pleasant to read about sex scenes between a child and an adult man), and it made me feel a little depressed. But I think it's an excellent book, and a necessary one.