Book Review: My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

´I just really need it to be a love story. You know! I really really need it to be that´.

Published at the peak of the discussions around the #MeToo Movement, My Dark Vanessa, the debut novel by Kate Elizabeth Russell, goes beyond the expectated take on abuse, delving with attention and empathy into the geography of trauma. 

#MeToo movement had a tremendous impact on reconsidering women bodies and relationships in general, also definying the limits of consent. From all over the world, more and more stories were told by victims that finally allowed themselves to break the years-long self-imposed painful silence. Definitely, in the specific context of the open discussion regarding consent sharing the hidden stories of trauma was possible as no more a socially suicidal gesture or a shameful testimony dismissed as lie. 

Vanessa, the woman character of My Dark Vanessa was abused by her teacher when she was 15, and had to leave the college she was enrolled. The teacher, her lover with whom she stayed in contact until his suicide, wrote an official letter not only denying the accusations but dismissing her as mentally troubled. Damaged for life, the once talented poet in the making refused to acknowledge the abuse and refused to join publicly other young girls who denounced the same teacher. And there is another teacher, H. Plough, she may be tempted to repeat the same scenario - because, after all, she was used with the same abusive scheme - but he it didn´t work out. 

The story in My Dark Vanessa, although one may feel more than once literally exasperated by her passivity and delusional attachment to the teacher, is exploring with a precise minutiae the labyrinth of trauma. How it does poison mind and soul, prevents normal relationships and professional achievements. It works in the case of any kind of trauma, particularly of a sexual nature. Vanessa´s emotional attachment to her abuser doesn´t have to do with her naivity of being in love with the wrong person, but with a dependency created through trauma. Such an abuse perpetrated at an age when the body and mind are in process of development has a destructive strength. 

The culture and cultural habits made possible stories like Vanessa´s. The English teacher recommended her Lolita abused for pedophilic reasons of all kind, the media is fascinated by schoolgirl types of women. Vanessa is not coming from a broker home, she is just a girl who was let blur the lines between the innocent favoritism of the teacher and sexual interest. It is so easy for that to happen at this age. But where is the choice of the teacher to be avoid the drama? And where is the protection network offered by the school?

Vanessa is a confusing character, by purpose mostly. A moment when I completely lost her as a ´human´ was the moment when the teacher commited suicide. Although it should not have been necessarily dramatic - after all, her trauma was finally disappearing - but in the book it is mentioned in few lines and there is no further plot development around this topic. 

My Dark Vanessa is an important contribution to the #MeToo literature and the stories about trauma and sexual abuse in general. I was impressed about the fine lines and observations, although I would have expected more subtelty in respect to the plot construction.

Rating: 3.5 stars