Cherie Jones (2021) How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House. London, Tinder Press. 978-1-4722-6877-8

 

Set on the Caribbean island of Barbados, this novel highlights the huge inequalites between the White, foreign, villa-owning rich and the local poor Black and mixed-race population forced to hustle, hawk and sell their bodies to make a living. The stark inequality brings harms to them all.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence and Abuse; Murder, Infanticide; Child Abuse; Elder Abuse; Incest; Rape]

[Spoiler alert]

The novel is not an optimistic one, filled with stories of child abuse, rape, incest, domestic violence and abuse, elder abuse and murder.

It tells the story of Lala, conceived through incest and rape, who marries a man she feels is strong and will enable her to have a happy home life and a family, while her childhood sweetheart is in jail. Adan is violent and abusive, and within an argument, shortly after he has murdered one of the rich men he was trying to rob, their baby is dropped and dies.

The story includes the machinations of the local police officer, angry at having officers brought in from outside handling the murder case. He is not easily fooled by the story of the baby being abducted and found dead on the beach.

The domestic violence and abuse between the two main characters, Adan and Lala includes coercive control, financial abuse - when he steals all the money she has saved and buried- physical violence and rape. Again, we have a perpetrator who is portrayed as consistently a low-life villain and a victim-survivor left with few options in life having come from an abusive childhood with her father and grandfather being one and the same.

Cherie Jones has said in several interviews* that she has experienced domestic abuse herself, not only personally as the victim-survivor, but also amongst her extended family. She has also said that the story of Lala is not her own story.

*https://www.essence.com/entertainment/cherie-jones-explores-race-class-and-domestic-violence-in-the-caribbean-in-her-debut-novel/

Awards:

·        Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2021)

Stacey Jameson (2019) Why Don’t You Just Leave Him? A True Story of Domestic Violence Self Published 978-1-7945-3217-5

 

This is a self-published book by the survivor of an extremely violent abusive marriage. She writes honestly about her account of how she became compliant and accepting as a result of her mother’s abuse of her as a child and how this fed in to her acceptance of a violent relationship and, despite getting up the courage to leave, returns on a number of occasions.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

The story is told by Stacey who details the development of herself as a child emotionally abused by her mother and how this prepared her for accepting a partner and then husband who was abusive.

Stacey meets her future husband as a teenager and goes on to live with him, have a child with him, marry him and have a further child while experiencing a very physically violent and controlling relationship. She is subjected to financial, sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse. Finally for the sake of her children she leaves and goes to a refuge. Like many survivors she returns to her husband a number of times before she finally finds the strength to leave for good.

The book is an honest and raw account by a very courageous woman.

Hanya Yanagihara (2015) A Little Life. London, Picador. 978-1-5290-6124-6

 

This is an epic, magnificent book focusing on the lives of four male friends who meet when they are in college and continue their friendships through the ups and downs of work, art and the relationships between themselves and people who join and leave their circle. It starts with them in their late teens and continues through to late middle-age.
 
[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]
 
The domestic abuse in this book occupies a relatively small part of what is a huge book, and is somewhat overshadowed by the self-harm and abuse the main character suffers, but it is significant in it’s brevity but intensity.
 
Jude forms his very first consensual relationship with an artist, Caleb. The relationship very soon becomes both physically abusive and mentally abusive as Caleb humiliates Jude at every opportunity. Finally he rapes him and throws him downstairs, leaving him for dead.
 
Despite the abuse being a discrete part of the book, it is difficult to separate from the main story as tolerating the abuse for as long as he does, illustrates how abuse has characterised Jude’s life and how poor his self-esteem, despite his outward and worldly achievements.
 
Awards:
 
·        Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015
·        Finalist National Book Award for Fiction 2015
·        Winner of Kirkus Prize for Fiction 2015
·        Shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction 2016
·        Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2016
·        Shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award 2017

Delia Owens (2018) Where the Crawdads Sing. London, Corsair. 978-1-4721-5466-8

 

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence]
 
The theme of this book is not about domestic abuse, but violence towards the mother and siblings of the main character and later in the book, the protagonist is subjected to sexual violence.
 
[Spoiler alert].
 
The story follows the life of a young girl, Kya, abandoned by both parents and her older siblings in the marshlands of North Carolina. The family is brought low by the father’s violence and alcoholism leading all the family to leave, until he himself disappears, leaving Kya alone to fend for herself.
 
Kya survives and eventually thrives with the help and support of a few particular neighbours, including the man she will eventually marry, who teaches her to read. The “Marsh Girl” does however suffer considerable negative attention and is shunned by many of the local townspeople. She is pursued by the local town “jock” and has an affair he keeps secret while making a more socially acceptable marriage. Meeting her later he wishes to continue the affair and sexually assaults her. When he is later found dead, she is implicated, tried but finally acquitted.
 
With the support of her friend, and later husband, Tate, she becomes a well-regarded naturalist, author and artist. Only after her death does her husband find out that she is also a published poet and did in fact commit the murder for which she was tried.
 
Awards:
·        The New York Times Fiction Best Seller 2019 and 2020
·        Listed as Barnes and Nobles Best Books of 2018
·        Sold more print copies than any other adult fiction or non-fiction title in 2019