My Dark Vanessa

Kate Elizabeth Russell is originally from Maine. She earned a BFA from the University of Maine at Farmington, an MFA from Indiana University, and  a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. Russell published My Dark Vanessa in 2020, though she had been writing and reworking it since she was an undergraduate student, more than 10 years earlier. Russell has been open about the fact that her novel is loosely based on experiences the author had as a teenager, though the novel is not autobiographical. Russell now resides in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband.

In the novel, Vanessa lives through a major cultural change regarding societal response to sexual abuse accusations. This shift reflects the Me Too movement, a major social movement and awareness campaign that gained traction on social media starting in 2017 with sexual abuse and harassment victims publicly coming forward about their experiences. The movement’s objectives are to provide a safe and empathetic community for women who have experienced abuse to talk about their experiences, to illustrate how widespread the issues of sexual abuse and harassment really were, and to hold male perpetrators accountable.  The #MeToo movement addresses the harmful social norm of trusting and protecting men over women, and challenges mainstream society’s troubling pattern of doubting women survivors’ credibility. My Dark Vanessa portrays many sides of this issue—in Vanessa’s adolescence, her community blames her and fails to protect her from sexual abuse. But by the time Vanessa is in her 30s, a social phenomenon reflecting the #MeToo movement has taken hold, and an online community pushes Vanessa to speak publicly about her abuse before Vanessa is ready to do so on her own terms. Thus, the novel casts a critical eye on the movement insofar as it can infringe on individual privacy and healing processes.

Vladimir Nabokov’s infamous 1955 novel Lolita features prominently in My Dark Vanessa. Not only does Lolita play a significant role in Vanessa’s life, but My Dark Vanessa often parallels Lolita in aspects of its plot and narrative devices—Lolita chronicles a middle-aged man’s long-term infatuation and sexual involvement with a prepubescent girl. Another Nabokov novel, Pale Fire, also makes several appearances in My Dark Vanessa.  Though a very different story from Lolita, Pale Fire also parallels My Dark Vanessa’s plot, as it features an obsessive, pedophilic English teacher who ends up taking his own life. On a more contemporary note, the 2014 memoir Excavation by Wendy C. Ortiz also bears a resemblance to Russell’s novel—it tells the true story of Ortiz’s experience being groomed by an older male teacher. When My Dark Vanessa was published several years later, Ortiz accused Russell of plagiarism, causing a scandal. While it’s undeniable that both novels deal with similar subject matter, Russell denies all allegations of plagiarism.