My Dark Vanessa

 

This is not an easy book.  Compelling, well-written, timely and important - yes - but certainly not easy.  This is the story of a years-long relationship between 15-year-old boarding school student, Vanessa Wye, and her 42-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane.  That sentence alone should indicate a clear line between victim and perpetrator, and under typical circumstances, most of us would feel overwhelming sympathy for this young girl who was clearly abused by an authority figure.  What I found hardest in reading this was that, up until the final chapter, Vanessa’s behavior and character is pretty repulsive in its own right. Though I wanted to feel motherly and protective toward her, I often just felt frustrated with her.  

She’s not portrayed sympathetically, and at almost every turn, defends, enables, and almost beatifies Strane, while belittling, resisting and lying to her parents, friends and anyone else who tries to help her.  Having said that, I’m sure her behavior is the product of his continual gaslighting and manipulation.  He’s a textbook narcissist with the intelligence to write his own script and put the words in his victim’s mouth.  In her desire to be loved and special, Vanessa is all too willing to play her part in his narrative of a predestined love story, frowned upon and misunderstood by society.  At every turn, he plays the victim.  By his reasoning, it’s her fault that she’s too young, too alluring to him, that she wants it too badly, that she’s dark and different like him, that she won’t take no for an answer.  It’s hard to tell if he actually believes his own B.S., as he dishes it so often.  He masterfully grooms her with books and gifts that show attention to her interests, while furthering the storyline he’s crafting.  When suspicions arise, he continually allows her to take the fall for him - he gets what he wants and she takes the blame and consequences.

No matter how noble and considerate he pretends to be, Strane is pathetic and unlikeable.  It’s clear he’s going to repeat the cycle with many more “Vanessas” until something stops him.  As a reader, you don’t really care what happens to him.  The saddest part is watching Vanessa become like him, and fall apart in all the ways that are obvious to the reader, but none of which seem obvious to her.  It’s only as an adult, overindulging in alcohol and meaningless relationships, having seen her once considerable academic promise more or less wasted, that she even starts to consider that she was victimized by Strane.  Just as he needed his narrative in which he wasn’t a predator, she needed her own narrative in which she wasn’t a victim.  The only way that narrative could work was if this was a consensual, romantic relationship. 

The story is well told, and as I’ve heard it called a number of times by others - uncomfortable.  I appreciate that the author didn’t take the predictable approach of just emphasizing Vanessa as a sad, wounded victim, but instead as a complex, difficult one who has to come to terms with her trauma in her own way.  It’s probably closer to the truth for many victims and should serve as a comfort to those whose path to healing is more complicated.  

★★★★ 1/2