My Dark Vanessa

“‘Do you mind if I use four-letter words?’ he asks. ‘I guess I should have gotten your permission first.’ He clasps his hands together, sarcastically sincere. ‘If my use of colorful language truly offends anyone here, speak now or forever hold your peace.’ No one, of course, says anything.”

Vanessa meets Strane, and in this moment, Strane seeks to equalize his standing with his students by using swear words. Strane treats his students as adults; because teens are in the liminal transition space between child and adult, the students are reluctant to seem square or immature in front of a charismatic adult like Strane. Strane’s casual and sarcastic treatment of consent foreshadows his slippery requests of sexual consent from Vanessa later in the novel when their physical relationship intensifies.

“‘I’m not giving you a hard time,’ she says, but we both know that’s not true. After a moment, she adds ‘I’m sorry. I just worry about you.’”

This passage captures Vanessa’s conflicted relationship with her mother. Vanessa’s mother often means well when she speaks with Vanessa about what she wants for Vanessa, but she usually alienates Vanessa with misplaced harshness. Vanessa’s unstable connection to her mother leaves Vanessa feeling like she has no trustworthy adults to whom she can turn with her adolescent confusion. Other maternal characters like Mrs. Antonova, Vanessa’s academic advisor, and Ms. Thompson, her dorm parent, are able to step in and support Vanessa, but her advisor’s firm boundaries and her dorm parent’s friendship with Strane stand in the way of Vanessa’s trust.

“We sit across from each other as though we’re ordinary, like people who once knew each other catching up after time spent apart. He looks alarmingly older, gray all over, and not only his hair, even his skin and eyes. His beard’s gone, the first time I’ve ever seen him without it, replaced by jowls can’t look at without wanting to gag. They hang like jellyfish, pull his whole face downward.”

In an early section of the novel that depicts Vanessa’s adult life, she offers the reader a physical description of the aging Strane. His aged appearance appears to inspire both pity and disgust in Vanessa, but, she has always felt this way toward Strane, even when she was in the throes of teenage obsession. The simile of a jellyfish, an invertebrate, invites a comparison between Strane and a spineless, vulnerable creature that has the power to sting and to injure despite its apparent weakness.

“Listening to him, I want to cry. I see him so clearly now, understand how lonely it must be for him, wanting the wrong thing, the bad thing, while living in a world that would surely villainize him if it knew.”

This passage contains a moment of dramatic irony in which the reader can see Strane as a villain even while Vanessa idealizes him as he reads a work of literature out loud to Vanessa’s English class. This moment illuminates the theme of the power of literature, as Strane’s heartfelt performance clouds Vanesa’s thinking and she identifies herself as a “bad thing,” blaming herself for Strane’s suffering and feeling a sense of false power that eventually causes her to feel a sense of responsibility for Strane’s wellbeing.

“‘I’m not going anywhere,’ he says, kissing my forehead. He calls me sensitive. ‘Like a…’ He stops and softly laughs. ‘I was about to say a little girl. I forget sometimes that’s exactly what you are.’”

Strane shows Vanessa paternal affection with a kiss on her forehead as well as a kind of perverse self-awareness in his acknowledgment of Vanessa’s youthfulness. Strane’s admission makes him more of a villain to the reader, who lacks Vanessa’s idealized blurriness of vision; to Vanessa, however, moments like these encourage her to view Strane as a person capable of virtuous openness and honesty, which inspires even more sympathy in Vanessa and enables her to feel even more like an adult on equal footing with Strane.

“I suggest watching TV, hoping to remind him of the offer he’d made of sitting on the couch and watching a movie, holding hands. ‘I’m sure to fall asleep if we do that,’ he says. ‘Why don’t we just go ahead and get ready for bed?’”

When Strane suggests to Vanessa that she stay the night at his house, he encourages her to overcome her reluctance by proposing they simply sit together and watch television. In this passage, however, which takes place at his house, Strane’s certainty that television will make him sleepy is evidence of the emptiness of his offer to Vanessa to maintain as much innocence as she would like about their physical relationship. This example of Strane’s two-facedness foreshadows his later betrayal of Vanessa when their affair is discovered.

“I start to tear up, but he doesn’t stop, just says I’m doing great as he keeps trying to get in. He tells me to breathe in and out, and when I exhale, he thrusts hard and pushes a little farther inside. I start crying, really crying—still, he doesn’t stop.”

The sex scene in which Vanessa loses her virginity to Strane is graphic in its description of Vanessa’s fear and pain. Readers are aware that Strane is committing rape. This event in the novel deepens the reader’s understanding of Strane as an abuser as his attempts to help Vanessa relax suggest that he has coached individuals in Vanessa’s position before. His refusal to acknowledge Vanessa’s distress further breaks Vanessa’s trust in him and confirms to the reader that he is, without a doubt, a sexual predator.

“I click out of the email chain, marking the most recent one from Ms. Thompson as unread. The curtness of his response makes me laugh out loud, as does Ms. Thompson’s nervousness, her little smiley faces, the dot-dot-dots stringing together incomplete sentences. It occurs to me that maybe she isn’t a smart person, or at least not as smart as me. I’ve never thought that about a teacher before.”

Vanessa’s smug evaluation of Ms. Thompson’s lack of intelligence reveals her flawed sense of empowerment. This passage juxtaposes Ms. Thompson’s lack of confidence and her misguided impulse to protect Strane with Vanessa’s overconfidence and sense of superiority over her dorm parent. Because Vanessa believed that Ms. Thompson had romantic feelings toward Strane, Vanessa feels competitive with Ms. Thompson; here, Vanessa feels a sense of power when she observes Strane’s curt email reply that protects their relationship.

“It’s funny to think how wrong Mom was about all that. Because there’s another option for those brave enough to take it: bypass boys altogether, go straight to men. Men who will never make you wait; men who are starved and grateful for scraps of attention, who fall in love so hard they throw themselves at your feet.”

Vanessa’s dismissal of developmentally normal dating rites of passage reveals that she, a young girl, has fully internalized the role of adult partner that Strane has thrust upon her. Ironically, Vanessa thinks of herself as brave and strong, which are characteristics that Strane uses to compliment Vanessa and to control her. Later, Vanessa’s sense of herself as brave and strong backfires when she is unable to move on from Strane’s abuse for fear of appearing weak.

“Mom presses her lips together, holding back a bigger smile. ‘First love is so special,’ she says. ‘You’ll never forget it.’”

The presence of irony heightens the suspense of this moment, when the reader wonders if Vanessa will tell her mother the truth about her boyfriend’s identity. The use of dramatic irony is also poignant, as, by this point in the novel, the reader is aware that Vanessa’s inability to move on from her relationship with Strane is holding her back in so many ways. Though Vanessa’s mother means her words as a blessing to her daughter, they are a curse.

“Inez’s laugh is high and strained. The man takes this as encouragement and puts both elbows on the desk, leans in close. He squints at her name tag. ‘Inez. That’s a pretty name.’ […] ‘There’s no way you’re twenty-one,’ he says. ‘Feels like just looking at you is enough to get me arrested.’”

At the luxury hotel where Vanessa works, she often observes predatory behavior in men. In this moment, a hotel patron makes a pass at Inez, Vanessa’s 17-year-old co-worker who has lied about her age. Though the man’s inappropriate flirtation does not go beyond words, Vanessa’s heightened sensitivity to such interactions between men and girls means that the exchange rattles her. The man demonstrates ease with his off-hand joke about the legality of his interest in Inez, which contrasts with the disturbance both Inez and Vanessa feel in his presence.

“The article says Strane groomed the girls. Groomed. I repeat the word over and over, try to understand what it means, but all I can think of is the lovely warm feeling I’d get when he stroked my hair.”

In this single sentence, the author of the novel sums up the harm that a sexually predatory man in a powerful position can inflict on a young girl. Vanessa conflates affection gestures with predatory behavior, revealing the reasons behind her inability to separate love and nurture from Strane’s abuse years later. The tactile and visual imagery of this passage is jarring to the reader, who by this point in the novel is fully aware of Strane’s villainy

“‘Vanessa, listen,’ she says. ‘He’s horrible. My sister used to tell me he was a creep, that he’d harass girls when they wore skirts, stuff like that, but I had no idea he was this bad.’ She leans forward, her eyes hard. ‘We can get him fired. My dad is on the board of trustees this year. If I tell him about this, Strane is out.’”

Jenny Murphy, Vanessa’s former best friend, tries to persuade Vanessa to understand Strane as a man with a long history of inappropriate interest in his female students. Jenny’s assurances to Vanessa reveal a different kind of power, which is an important theme of the novel; while Vanessa feels strength in the emotional and sexual power she holds over Strane, Jenny feels strength over Strane thanks to her father’s position on the board of trustees. Both Strane and Mr. Murphy are older men in a position of privilege, but Jenny’s faith in her father’s power reveals the potential of this privilege to do good. Juxtaposed against Vanessa’s misplaced faith in Strane, this exchange between the two girls highlights the power of men over young females in society at large.

“‘I’d rather end my life now that go through that,’ Strane says. He looks down at me, his hands still in his pants pockets. He’s casual even when he looks ruin in the eye. ‘But maybe you’re stronger than I am.’”

Strane is dramatic as he tells Vanessa about the lengths he will go to avoid incarceration for his love for Vanessa. Though Vanessa interprets his words as proof of his sincere attachment to her, his threat foreshadows Strane’s silence as Vanessa takes the fall for the rumors that eventually surround their relationship. As well, this statement foreshadows Strane’s decision to take his own life when the investigation into Taylor Birch’s allegations of abuse is underway.

“The video ends and I gather the pictures, dump them back into the box. That fucking box. Ordinary girls have shoeboxes of love letters and dried-out corsages; I get a stack of child porn.”

After 30-year-old Vanessa learns about Strane’s death, she receives a package in the mail containing all the physical evidence of her relationship with Strane. Strane’s motive in sending Vanessa the package is ambiguous, but Vanessa’s reaction is clear as she starts to realize that her memories are tainted by the reality of Strane’s abuse. The juxtaposition of innocent teenage imagery with “child porn” emphasizes the disturbing nature of the explicit photographs of Vanessa that Strane treasured up until his death.

“I plunge my hand into the sink and grope blindly for pieces of the broken plate, not caring if I slice myself open. I leave the shards lined up on the counter, dripping water and soap suds. Later, when I’m lying in my own bed still checking myself for hurt—was it so bad, what she said to me? It feels worse than what I deserved—she tosses the shards into the trash and I hear the clatter of ceramic all the way up to my attic bedroom.”

After an argument with her mother, Vanessa does not care if she hurts herself. She tries to understand the pain her mother inflicted with her words, but this process takes longer than Vanessa expects. This incident inspires the reader to wonder about Vanessa’s history with her mother and the other times her mother has hurt Vanessa. It is possible that these hurts have a cumulative effect on Vanessa, who learns to link pain with love from an early age.

“Before she signs off, Jenny asks me what really happened. Hands shaky, I start to type out, he used me then threw me away, then think better and delete it, the specter of firing and police and Strane thrown in prison still too frightening.”

As an adult, Vanessa gradually faces the reality of her relationship with Strane, and her ability to type out the words to Jenny reflects her slow coming to terms with what happened to her as a vulnerable teenager. Though Vanessa deletes the truth before sending the message, the fact that she can face the truth to herself demonstrates that she is starting to heal.

“‘Because if you believe that,’ he continues, ‘tell me now and I’ll turn myself in. If you think I should go to prison, lose all my freedoms, and be branded a monster for the rest of my life just because I had the bad luck of falling in love with a teenager, then please, let me know right now.’”

Vanessa’s memory of Strane reveals the complexity of his manipulation, enhancing the reader’s understanding of Vanessa’s thought processes as the victim of a sexual predator. He convinces Vanessa that his love for her is to blame for his deviance, not his own choices and impulses, and Vanessa is too young and inexperienced to think anything different. By taking advantage of Vanessa’s innocence and trust, Strane protects himself from any possibility that Vanessa will turn against him, and she proves she is worthy of his trust until the end of his life.

“Maintaining this blog is like walking alone at night with my headphones on, like going to the bar with the sole intention of getting so drunk I can’t see straight, things I remember my Psychology 101 textbook referring to as ‘risky behavior.’”

Ironically, Vanessa feels that revealing the truth about her relationship with Strane on her blog as riskier than behaviors that endanger her. In her life, she has not learned what it means to be safe, and it is only through working with Ruby, her therapist, that Vanessa is able to understand how unsafe she really was when she relied on Strane for love and protection.

“‘Vanessa, stay away from him,’ he says. I screw up my face, fake indignation. ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘Be a good girl,’ he says. ‘You know what you are capable of.’”

This conversation between Strane and Vanessa takes place after she learns that her English professor Henry is married to the new counselor at Browick. Strane maintains his control over Vanessa by implying that she is the instigator of inappropriate relationships between herself and older men in authority. Later in the novel, Vanessa tries to seduce Henry, testing the power that Strane acknowledges so openly, and his resistance to Vanessa confuses and humiliates Vanessa. Though she feels hurt, his refusal of her enables her later in life to remember Henry with a clarity that contrasts with her confusion around her memories of Strane.

“After dinner, he drives me home, but when I invite him in, he says he can’t. It cuts me straight down the middle, my guts spilling all over the passenger seat. All I can think about is how in a month I’ll be twenty-three and then someday thirty-three, and forty-three, and being that age is as unfathomable as being dead.”

When Strane rejects Vanessa, she feels hurt and her thoughts go to the future, when she will eventually be an adult and therefore, less physically alluring to Strane. By comparing her adult self to her dead self, Vanessa reveals that she sees herself through Strane’s eyes and that she fears she will cease to exist when Strane no longer finds her attractive.

“Afterward, as we walk down Congress Street toward my apartment, the man says, ‘Men like that know how to pick the right ones, you know? They’re real predators. They know how to scan a herd and select the weak.’”

After going to a movie with a man her own age, Vanessa hears him describe Strane, unaware of Vanessa’s past and the effect that his words and his matter-of-fact tone could have on her. The description of predatory behavior is accurate, but it disturbs Vanessa who is not yet able to accept herself as capable of weakness. This inability to observe fragility in herself contributes directly to Vanessa’s enduring identification with Strane and her defensive attitude toward him.

“I watch her walk away, not a rumor but a real person, a woman who used to be a girl. I’m real, too. Have I ever thought that about myself so plainly before? It’s such a small revelation. Jo tugs on the leash and, for the first time, I can imagine how it might feel not to be his, not to be him. To feel that maybe I could be good.”

After Vanessa adopts her dog Jolene, she takes her for a walk and sees Taylor Birch in town. The two women talk, and afterward, Vanessa is finally able to see both Taylor and herself as their own persons. Having Jolene, a dog with a woman’s name, by her side enables Vanessa to experience this shift in perception, indicating that Vanessa now understands that females can be trusted to know their own experience and to support each other.