My Dark Vanessa Summary
Kate Elizabeth Russell

My Dark Vanessa Overview

Deeply influenced by Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa is a frank first-person account of a long-term sexual relationship between an introspective prep school student, Vanessa Wye, and her charismatic English teacher, Jacob Strane. The narration divides its focus between Vanessa when she is in school and Vanessa in her 30s when she is approached by a journalist championing the #MeToo movement to share her story. The novel tackles, among others, themes of the relationship between power and sexuality, the definition of victimhood, the difficult journey toward psychological recovery, the murky logic of the age of consent in a culture shaped by social media and the Internet, and the dark dynamics of memory.