My Dark Vanessa
by Kate Elizabeth Russell
Nominations: BookTube Finalist 2021, Center For Fiction Longlist 2020, Goodreads Finalist 2020
Date Read: April 14, 2023
Wow. Just wow. Russell explores the complicated relationship of a teenager preyed upon by a teacher – the grooming, the desire, the guilt, the confusion – all twisted together into a complicated and ugly reality. Russell walks this crooked line so well, conveying how devastating this type of relationship can be for a teenage girl unsure of her own power and place in the world. As is so often the case, the attention from an authority figure is like a drug, both exciting and abhorrent.
Strane is an English teacher at a boarding school. He instantly zeroes in on Veronica and slowly begins grooming her, making the smallest and subtlest of gestures to make her wonder if he is attracted to her. As their relationship quickly progresses, he rests his head in her lap and confesses he is going to ruin her. And that is indeed what just about happens.
“If I had never met Strane, I doubt I would have turned out all that different. Some boy would’ve used me, taken me for granted, ripped my heart out. At least Strane gave me a better story to tell than theirs.”
The relationship between Strane and Veronica is difficult to keep secret, since Veronica spends so much time in his classroom. It’s only a matter of time before their relationship becomes the fodder of gossips and both are brought in for questioning. Beforehand, Strane gets Veronica to fall on her sword for him, telling anyone and everyone that there was no affair; that she made up the entire thing herself for attention. Because this nominally violates their honor code, the school expels her for bad conduct.
Veronica bounces around, from high school to college, but has no clear path forward. She embarks on therapy and is recruited by other victims of Strane to share her story but she refuses. Veronica refuses to think of herself as a victim, clinging to the belief that she willed their affair into being, that she possessed so much more power than she actually had.
She tells her therapist: “I just really need it to be a love story. You know? I really, really need it to be that… Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?”
The most heartbreaking part of this is that Veronica is stuck in this relationship. Strane is the only man she has ever loved, ever had sex with, ever to pay attention to her. Her relationship to him defines her entire adolescence and early adulthood. She is trapped in a past, even though it becomes clear Strane no longer desires her. She becomes too old for his sexual appetites.
Eventually, when the line of victims becomes too long to ignore, Strane realizes that his teaching career is over and he may face felony consequences. He contacts Veronica one last time before ending his life, jumping off a cliff in dramatic fashion. The knowledge she was the last person to speak to him haunts her.
Most unsettlingly, does Veronica hold any of the blame for the affair? She wanted it just as much as Strane did. She craved the attention, affection, desire. Because this is such a murky area makes starkly clear that authority figures have rules for a reason. It’s up to the adults in life to set the boundaries and stick to them, for everyone’s sake.
Ultimately, Veronica slowly wanders onto the path of healing, getting a dog and slowly thinking of her future. The years are long, though, so who knows how this experience will play with her mind in her mid-thirties, mid-life and old age. Only time will tell.
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