Description
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“[An] exceedingly complex, inventive, resourceful examination of harm and power.” —The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“A lightning rod . . . brilliantly crafted.”—The Washington Post
A most anticipated book by The New York Times • USA Today • Entertainment Weekly • Marie Claire • Elle • Harper’s Bazaar • Bustle • Newsweek • New York Post • Esquire • Real Simple • The Sunday Times • The Guardian
Exploring the psychological dynamics of the relationship between a precocious yet naïve
teenage girl and her magnetic and manipulative teacher, a brilliant, all-consuming read
that marks the explosive debut of an extraordinary new writer.
2000. Bright, ambitious, and yearning for adulthood, fifteen-year-old Vanessa Wye becomes
entangled in an affair with Jacob Strane, her magnetic and guileful forty-two-year-old English teacher.
2017. Amid the rising wave of allegations against powerful men, a reckoning is coming due.
Strane has been accused of sexual abuse by a former student, who reaches out to Vanessa,
and now Vanessa suddenly finds herself facing an impossible choice: remain silent, firm
in the belief that her teenage self willingly engaged in this relationship, or redefine herself
and the events of her past. But how can Vanessa reject her first love, the man who
fundamentally transformed her and has been a persistent presence in her life? Is it
possible that the man she loved as a teenager—and who professed to worship only
her—may be far different from what she has always believed?
Alternating between Vanessa’s present and her past, My Dark Vanessa juxtaposes memory
and trauma with the breathless excitement of a teenage girl discovering the power her own
body can wield. Thought-provoking and impossible to put down, this is a masterful
portrayal of troubled adolescence and its repercussions that raises vital questions about
agency, consent, complicity, and victimhood. Written with the haunting intimacy of The
Girls and the creeping intensity of Room, My Dark Vanessa is an era-defining novel that
brilliantly captures and reflects the shifting cultural mores transforming our relationships and society itself.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell
