My Dark Vanessa

(Paperback)

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An era-defining novel about the relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her teacher
ALL HE DID WAS FALL IN LOVE WITH ME AND THE WORLD TURNED HIM INTO A MONSTER

Vanessa Wye was fifteen-years-old when she first had sex with her English teacher.

She is now thirty-two and in the storm of allegations against powerful men in 2017, the teacher, Jacob Strane, has just been accused of sexual abuse by another former student.

Vanessa is horrified by this news, because she is quite certain that the relationship she had with Strane wasn't abuse. It was love. She's sure of that.

Forced to rethink her past, to revisit everything that happened, Vanessa has to redefine the great love story of her life her great sexual awakening as rape. Now she must deal with the possibility that she might be a victim, and just one of many.

Nuanced, uncomfortable, bold and powerful, My Dark Vanessa goes straight to the heart of some of the most complex issues of our age.

Reviews

A hard story to read and a harder one to put down a package of dynamite Stephen King

The book that scared Weinstein Metro

Compulsive. I burned through the first half in such a fever that I lost sleep, I missed meals a lightning rod Washington Post

A brilliant and stunning debut utterly truth-rattling, humane in its clarity and chilling in its resonance. An absolute must-read Gillian Flynn,author ofGone Girl

A skilled, terrifying depiction of grooming we should all read it Marian Keyes

Once in a while, a book comes along that consumes your waking hours, unmoors you from your lived reality, grips the very core of you and doesnt let go. My Dark Vanessa is that book Esquire

Clever, unsettling this novel stands out for its elusiveness, its exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power New Yorker

The #MeToo novel thats as gripping as any thriller Grazia

Gripping and unsettling a bracingly uncompromising book. It will doubtless be devoured with an ache of recognition by large numbers of women. But it really ought to be read by men Economist

Superb a book that asks what we have lost and gained in an era that has revolutionised the way we think about sex and power Observer

Addictively disturbing Red Magazine

Author Bio

Kate Elizabeth Russell is originally from eastern Maine. She holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Kansas and an MFA from Indiana University. Her work has appeared in Hayden's Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, and Quarterly West, among other journals, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. This is her first novel.