- It’s a tough read this. Vanessa is an innocent fifteen year old schoolgirl, and her English teacher a predatory forty-two year old male. We witness the intricate dynamics of grooming. She believed that ‘to be groomed is to be loved and handled like a precious, delicate thing’.
- The sexual abuse of the young girl is described in detail and it's horrific, despite her complicity. ‘I’m lucky to have this, to be so loved..he worshipped me. I was lucky’. He introduces her to Nabokov’s Lolita. It becomes her favourite novel.
- Her childhood was lonely and friendless in an isolated small town in Maine. She barely tolerates her mother. She’s smart and mature, with huge potential and talent. In her early twenties she’s darker, more difficult and confronting, and still seeing the groomer. She’s had no other sexual relationships.
- Other students in school can see it, and offer support, but Vanessa denies it. She is committed to protecting the teacher. She enjoys the special relationship she shares with him. She lies time and time again to other students, to the Principal, to her parents. She’s a willing recipient of his affection, a participant in her seduction. He builds up her self-esteem.
- It's not until she reaches her early thirties that she finally twigs, when other girls he molested come forward.
- She sees a therapist who enables her to articulate that ‘I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that’.
- A brilliant, gripping read and a perceptive, enlightening novel for our times.
No comments:
Post a Comment