My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This novel! Our narrator is Vanessa Wye, who tells us her first boyfriend was an older man. Quickly, we learn this “boyfriend” was a decades-older teacher at Vanessa’s boarding school who first touched her when she was 15 years old. The book both follows Vanessa from high school to post-college, toggling between these past and future narratives, showing how the gauziest veils of reframing and interpretation can change the nature of an experience and memory. The book opens in present day, as the teacher who slept with Vanessa years earlier — his name is Jacob Strane — has been accused of abusing a student. That Strane is thrust into the spotlight and the accuser is constantly calling him out on social media. Vanessa struggles with keeping her memories wedged into the boxes she designed for them. The new turn of events presses her to more honestly examine the past, and how the dark things that happened to her impact who she has become. The fascinating quality of this story is in the uncomfortable, ponderous way it pushes at the central question Vanessa asks herself about Strane: was this a great love affair, as she has always told herself, or was she a victim of abuse? To be clear, this is not a mystery, though it feels like one. It is always abundantly clear what great wrongs have occurred. The beauty of this novel is in its well-crafted story, full of shadows.
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