A haunting and brilliant read that explores the power play between a manipulative teacher and his naïve young student and the lasting effects the affair has on both decades later. Uncomfortable, disturbing and, yet, extremely relevant, My Dark Vanessa is very much a raw take on a modern-day Lolita. The read is at times painful and infuriating, but it is without a doubt a novel you will never forget.
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.
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. My Dark Vanessa is her first novel.
Relive the sensuality, the romance, and the drama of Fifty Shades Freed—the love story that enthralled millions of readers around the world—through the thoughts, reflections, and dreams of
THE OFFICIAL MOVIE TIE-IN EDITION. The major motion picture releases on February 10 in time Valentine's Day 2018 and is based on volume three of the phenomenal #1 New York Times bestselling trilogy
Now available as a three-volume paperback boxed set, E L James’s New York Times #1 bestselling trilogy has been hailed by Entertainment Weekly as being “in a class by itself.”
A neglected tour de force by the first American to win the Nobel Prize in literature, Kingsblood Royal is a stirring and wickedly funny portrait of a man who resigns from the white race. When Neil
With an afterword by E. L. Doctorow—the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of one man’s pursuit of intellectual freedom in the face of ignorance and corruption, from the author of
Orphaned as a teen, Carol Milford grew up in a city in Minnesota. Already a compassionate person, Carol’s time studying in college and grad school exposed her to diverse, radical ideas and
This new edition of Jane's Austen's 19th-century British novel presents the 1816 text along with contemporary critical essays that introduce students to Emma from gender, new historical, Marxist,
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be
Jane Austen's remarkable juvenilia date from 1787, when she was eleven, to 1793, when she was seventeen. She preserved these early writings in three manuscript notebooks, entitled, with mock
“An exciting new edition of a Twain text that raises important questions about modernity, technology, and progress. I especially welcome the inclusion of all of Dan Beard’s original
Set as the sequel to the classic American novel by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has earned its rightful place as an icon in literary history. Poised as one of the first novels to
Set as the sequel to the classic American novel by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has earned its rightful place as an icon in literary history. Poised as one of the first novels to
