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MY DARK VANESSABy Kate Elizabeth RussellMY DARK VANESSABy Kate Elizabeth Russell
In her clever, unsettling debut novel, “My Dark Vanessa,” Kate Elizabeth Russell offers a creepy account of abuse and an overwrought teenage girl’s love story at the same time; one is superimposed on the other.In her clever, unsettling debut novel, “My Dark Vanessa,” Kate Elizabeth Russell offers a creepy account of abuse and an overwrought teenage girl’s love story at the same time; one is superimposed on the other.
Vanessa Wye is a lonely, bookish 15-year-old on scholarship at an elite boarding school in Maine. Her 42-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane, tells her she has hair the color of maple leaves. He reads her poems. He gives her Sylvia Plath and his underlined, annotated copy of “Lolita.” He puts his hand on her leg under a desk. He shows her the lines of “Pale Fire” referenced in the title: “Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed,/My dark Vanessa.”Vanessa Wye is a lonely, bookish 15-year-old on scholarship at an elite boarding school in Maine. Her 42-year-old English teacher, Jacob Strane, tells her she has hair the color of maple leaves. He reads her poems. He gives her Sylvia Plath and his underlined, annotated copy of “Lolita.” He puts his hand on her leg under a desk. He shows her the lines of “Pale Fire” referenced in the title: “Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed,/My dark Vanessa.”
The adult Vanessa is a classic unreliable narrator, and as she is reporting the sexual entanglement the reader becomes queasily aware of this. She says: “He was careful with me. He tried so hard to be good.” The reader sees early on that she is misclassifying her own experience, that it got filed erroneously in her mind, and watches helplessly as the story unfolds. Vanessa says, “I feel forced over a threshold, thrust out of my ordinary life into a place where it’s possible for grown men to be so pathetically in love with me they fall at my feet.”The adult Vanessa is a classic unreliable narrator, and as she is reporting the sexual entanglement the reader becomes queasily aware of this. She says: “He was careful with me. He tried so hard to be good.” The reader sees early on that she is misclassifying her own experience, that it got filed erroneously in her mind, and watches helplessly as the story unfolds. Vanessa says, “I feel forced over a threshold, thrust out of my ordinary life into a place where it’s possible for grown men to be so pathetically in love with me they fall at my feet.”
[ Read an excerpt from “My Dark Vanessa.” ]
There are flashes of clarity. When Vanessa sees Strane shove her dog off the couch. When he continues to have sex with her for the first time even though she is crying. When he threatens that she will have to go into foster care if she tells anyone. When she finds out he betrayed her at a crucial moment. But then she reverts to the love story. She protects the idea of their being in love because she needs it.There are flashes of clarity. When Vanessa sees Strane shove her dog off the couch. When he continues to have sex with her for the first time even though she is crying. When he threatens that she will have to go into foster care if she tells anyone. When she finds out he betrayed her at a crucial moment. But then she reverts to the love story. She protects the idea of their being in love because she needs it.
[ This book was one of our most anticipated titles of March. See the full list. ][ This book was one of our most anticipated titles of March. See the full list. ]
After Strane is accused by a more recent student on social media, Vanessa is cornered: She faces or almost faces the ways she has been deluding herself, and then she deludes herself again. One of the cleverest aspects of the novel is how it resists the facile linear form of revelation; it backs up toward insights, runs away from them, sifts through them again, obsesses.After Strane is accused by a more recent student on social media, Vanessa is cornered: She faces or almost faces the ways she has been deluding herself, and then she deludes herself again. One of the cleverest aspects of the novel is how it resists the facile linear form of revelation; it backs up toward insights, runs away from them, sifts through them again, obsesses.
The book reads like a thriller or mystery story though there is no mystery. Vanessa is trying to get to the facts while other people — a journalist, her parents, her classmates, her therapist — are trying to uncover facts, too, but the facts themselves shimmer in the sunlight. “I don’t know what I know,” she says several times.The book reads like a thriller or mystery story though there is no mystery. Vanessa is trying to get to the facts while other people — a journalist, her parents, her classmates, her therapist — are trying to uncover facts, too, but the facts themselves shimmer in the sunlight. “I don’t know what I know,” she says several times.
Her understanding is patchy, comes in flashes, recedes. Her ability to make sense of the situation is mitigated by her wishes, and also by her honesty. She darts through the story, weaving contradiction, disorienting the reader, lying sometimes, to herself, to her parents, to a subsequent much more upstanding college professor, and yet also not lying. Vanessa muses, “Trying to talk about it only makes you sound like a lunatic, one minute calling it rape and the next clarifying, Well, it wasn’t rape rape.”Her understanding is patchy, comes in flashes, recedes. Her ability to make sense of the situation is mitigated by her wishes, and also by her honesty. She darts through the story, weaving contradiction, disorienting the reader, lying sometimes, to herself, to her parents, to a subsequent much more upstanding college professor, and yet also not lying. Vanessa muses, “Trying to talk about it only makes you sound like a lunatic, one minute calling it rape and the next clarifying, Well, it wasn’t rape rape.”
One of the obsessions of the book is how language fails her. “Even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened. It swallows me and all the times I wanted it, begged for it.”One of the obsessions of the book is how language fails her. “Even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened. It swallows me and all the times I wanted it, begged for it.”
The novel flickers between the horror of the situation and the romantic overlay with the stylized dizziness of a disco ball. The reader struggles, along with Vanessa, to make sense of what is happening, to interpolate, to see the truth, with so many false accounts, so many delusions, so many efforts to neaten or prettify. Vanessa is rewriting what happens, even as it is happening. “At least I knew how it felt to be worshiped. He fell at my feet before he even kissed me.”The novel flickers between the horror of the situation and the romantic overlay with the stylized dizziness of a disco ball. The reader struggles, along with Vanessa, to make sense of what is happening, to interpolate, to see the truth, with so many false accounts, so many delusions, so many efforts to neaten or prettify. Vanessa is rewriting what happens, even as it is happening. “At least I knew how it felt to be worshiped. He fell at my feet before he even kissed me.”
One of the more radical aspects of the novel is that it maintains its ambiguities, it refuses to give up entirely on the idea that there was love somewhere in this encounter, along with other sicker, darker things. Vanessa explains: “Driven toward it, toward him, I was the kind of girl that isn’t supposed to exist: one eager to hurl herself into the path of a pedophile. But no, that word isn’t right, never has been. It’s a cop-out, a lie in the way it’s wrong to call me a victim and nothing more. He was never so simple; neither was I.”One of the more radical aspects of the novel is that it maintains its ambiguities, it refuses to give up entirely on the idea that there was love somewhere in this encounter, along with other sicker, darker things. Vanessa explains: “Driven toward it, toward him, I was the kind of girl that isn’t supposed to exist: one eager to hurl herself into the path of a pedophile. But no, that word isn’t right, never has been. It’s a cop-out, a lie in the way it’s wrong to call me a victim and nothing more. He was never so simple; neither was I.”
Very occasionally the writing veers toward clunkiness or overexplication, but at her best, Russell probes deftly at the disorienting paradoxes inherent in these relationships: “We’re miles from anyone and anywhere, free to do whatever we want, our isolation as safe as it is dangerous. I don’t know how to feel one without the other anymore.”Very occasionally the writing veers toward clunkiness or overexplication, but at her best, Russell probes deftly at the disorienting paradoxes inherent in these relationships: “We’re miles from anyone and anywhere, free to do whatever we want, our isolation as safe as it is dangerous. I don’t know how to feel one without the other anymore.”
The novel is also intrigued by the complicated, sometimes unwelcome, power of what Nabokov calls the “nymphet”: “Humbert describing the qualities of nymphets hidden among ordinary girls: ‘She stands unrecognized by them and unconscious of her fantastic power.’ I have power. Power to make it happen. Power over him. I was an idiot for not realizing this sooner.”The novel is also intrigued by the complicated, sometimes unwelcome, power of what Nabokov calls the “nymphet”: “Humbert describing the qualities of nymphets hidden among ordinary girls: ‘She stands unrecognized by them and unconscious of her fantastic power.’ I have power. Power to make it happen. Power over him. I was an idiot for not realizing this sooner.”
Vanessa’s capacity to romanticize, to fictionalize, runs rampant. At one point, in a college professor’s office, she mixes up her own experience with Lolita’s: She cites a scene when Humbert Humbert buys strawberry pajamas for Lolita to wear before she realizes that in fact it was Strane who bought them for her. Her sense of reality is skewed, doctored.Vanessa’s capacity to romanticize, to fictionalize, runs rampant. At one point, in a college professor’s office, she mixes up her own experience with Lolita’s: She cites a scene when Humbert Humbert buys strawberry pajamas for Lolita to wear before she realizes that in fact it was Strane who bought them for her. Her sense of reality is skewed, doctored.
Russell has created an astute account of brokenness, how the destructive power of this early relationship reverberates in the convoluted way Vanessa’s mind processes it. We protect ourselves with memory. We lie to ourselves. We make things into what we can handle. Vanessa, a frustrated writer who works as a hotel concierge, is particularly skilled at this art. She spends nearly two decades rewriting this event. If Strane at one point wonders what happened to her considerable creative powers, that was it. One of them, either Vanessa or Strane, the novel refuses to tell us unequivocally which, underlines a moment in “Lolita” when Humbert is driving with Lolita after they first have sex: “It was something quite special that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint, as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed.”Russell has created an astute account of brokenness, how the destructive power of this early relationship reverberates in the convoluted way Vanessa’s mind processes it. We protect ourselves with memory. We lie to ourselves. We make things into what we can handle. Vanessa, a frustrated writer who works as a hotel concierge, is particularly skilled at this art. She spends nearly two decades rewriting this event. If Strane at one point wonders what happened to her considerable creative powers, that was it. One of them, either Vanessa or Strane, the novel refuses to tell us unequivocally which, underlines a moment in “Lolita” when Humbert is driving with Lolita after they first have sex: “It was something quite special that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint, as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed.”
In some sense these sorts of tangled and traumatic experiences may be best plumbed in fiction. Joan Didion once wrote that because of its “irreducible ambiguities” fiction is “in many ways hostile to ideology.” It resists the simplicity, the collapsing of nuances, that our political ideologies at their most stringent demand. Fiction, good fiction at least, goes for the singular, the conflicting, the impossible to pin down or reduce.In some sense these sorts of tangled and traumatic experiences may be best plumbed in fiction. Joan Didion once wrote that because of its “irreducible ambiguities” fiction is “in many ways hostile to ideology.” It resists the simplicity, the collapsing of nuances, that our political ideologies at their most stringent demand. Fiction, good fiction at least, goes for the singular, the conflicting, the impossible to pin down or reduce.
It is difficult to write about this subject without falling into predictable tropes or clichés, but Russell manages a brutal originality. In an era of neat furious accounts of victimhood, this novel stands out for elusiveness, its exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.It is difficult to write about this subject without falling into predictable tropes or clichés, but Russell manages a brutal originality. In an era of neat furious accounts of victimhood, this novel stands out for elusiveness, its exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.