Excerpt from My Dark Vanessa by Kate Russell, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Let me guess," she says, "another abuser exposed."

I look up from my phone, my limbs cold.

"It's just so endless, isn't it?" She gives a sad smile. "There's no escape."

She starts talking about the latest high-profile exposé, a director who built a career out of films about women being brutalized. Behind the scenes of those films, he apparently enjoyed exposing himself to young actresses and cajoling them into giving him blow jobs.

"Who would have guessed that guy was abusive?" Ruby asks, sarcastic. "His movies are all the evidence we need. These men hide in plain sight."

"Only because we let them," I say. "We all turn a blind eye."

She nods. "You're so right."

It's thrilling to talk like this, to creep so close to the edge.

"I don't know what to think of all the women who worked with him over and over," I say. "Did they have no self-respect?"

"Well, you can't blame the women," Ruby says. I don't argue, just hand her my check.



At home I get stoned and fall asleep on the couch with all the lights on. At seven in the morning, my phone buzzes against the hardwood floor with a text and I stumble across the room for it. Mom. Hi honey. Just thinking of you.

Staring at the screen, I try to gauge what she knows. Taylor's Facebook post has been up for three days now, and though Mom isn't connected with anyone from Browick, the post has been shared so widely. Besides, she's online all the time these days, endlessly liking, sharing, and getting into fights with conservative trolls. She easily could have seen it.

I minimize the text and bring up Facebook: 2.3k shares, 7.9k likes. Last night, Taylor posted a public status update:

BELIEVE WOMEN.

Excerpted from My Dark Vanessa by Karen Russell. Copyright © 2020 by Karen Russell. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.