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

Nicholas Sparks (2010) Safe Haven. London, Little Brown. 978-0-7515-4852-5

 

The story is one of a woman having fled an abusive marriage and establishing a new life with a new identity, all the time knowing that her husband might track her down.
 
[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]
 
The story is set in the present, with the main character looking back and reflecting on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband and constantly looking over her shoulder for any indication that he might have caught up with her. As she gradually begins to feel safe a relationship develops with a local widower and his young children
 
The story is told from two points of view – that of the main character and that of her increasingly deranged ex-husband – until the inevitable happens and he tracks her down leading to a violent, but ultimately “happy”, ending for the main character and her new life.
 
The book has a number of stereotypes, not least that of the police detective as the husband, and the main character having been brought up in a household where she witnessed violence and abuse. The domestic abuse is extreme, both in the elements of control, the violence and the way in which the abuser tracks down his wife.
 
There is a plot twist at the end where the woman the main character portrays is revealed as the ghost her new partners dead wife, guiding her in their relationship.
 
The book was made into a film – billed as a “romantic drama fantasy thriller” starring Julianne Hough as the main character and David Lyons as the abuser. The reviews were, on the whole, negative, described as "schmaltzy, predictable, and melodramatic”. The plot twist particularly came in for a considerable amount of negative criticism.

Paula Sharp (1997) Crows Over a Wheatfield. London, Bloomsbury. 978-0-7475-3112-9

 

Crows Over a Wheatfield covers the story of two families affected by domestic abuse and examines the treatment of domestic abuse victims in court, but is a redemptive tale as women from both families use the experiences to make their lives, and the lives of other victims, better.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert].
 
The initial story is one of a family with a brilliant and well known lawyer who, at home, is abusive, falling into violent and unpredictable rages. After the death of the protagonist’s, Melanie, mother, he brings home and marries a girl with whom he has been having an affair and their illegitimate child, Matt. The two children and his new wife suffer from his abuse with a final act causing a mental breakdown for Matt and the boy’s mother finally leaving the marriage.
 
Melanie seeks revenge in succeeding in her own law career, while finding the rest of her life hollow and empty. One summer she goes to stay with her stepmother who lives close to her brother and meets the people who have befriended them. Melanie becomes friends with Mildred, a close friend of her brother and the daughter of a Minister who runs the half-way house where Matt lives.
 
Mildred is married to a charismatic character, Daniel, by whom she has a son, Ben. Daniel, behind his charming façade, is a deeply controlling and physically abusive man, both to his wife and child who is terrified of him. The courts, however, refuse to recognise the abuse and put Mildred in a positive where she feels she has to flee with her child and go into hiding.
 
In the ten years she is away she opens the route of escape to other victims of abuse, and sets in train a “railroad” in the manner of Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad for black slaves. In supporting another case, she comes out of hiding once her son reaches eighteen, and the families are reunited. Melanie decides to resign her position and follow her heart.
 
This has probably been the most difficult book for me to read to date. I found the scenes set in court where lies were told and actions carried out in contravention of the safety of the children involved, resonated with my own experiences and triggered my post-traumatic stress disorder. Having said that, there is something healing about reading that you are not the only person with these experiences of the western legal system.
 
I also liked the fact that the book included a victim of abuse, Mildred, who didn’t conform to the stereotypes I had come across in other fiction. However, the father figure being a high-ranking lawyer did!
 
The author has drawn from her own experiences of being a defence attorney and has said that her exposure to the drama in court influenced her writing.

Awards:
Editor’s Choice for the Chicago Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle.
A notable book in the New York Times Book Review

Brianna Labuskes (2019) Girls of Glass. Seattle, Thomas and Mercer. 978-1-503-90228-2

 

This is a murder mystery written from the point-of-view of the Detective looking to solve the abduction and murder of a six-year old child. Her involvement and detachment in the case is constantly questioned as previously her daughter had been abducted and murdered when she was four years old.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence, Child Abuse, Incest]

[Spoiler alert]

Although the story is told by the detectives (in the third person) involved in investigating the disappearance and subsequent murder of a six-year old girl, the story revolves round a wealthy and powerful but toxic family living in a small town in Florida.

The family is headed up by a charming, narcissistic District Judge, secure in his role with all the right powerful connections. At home he is a sexual abuser to his two daughters, his granddaughter and with clear intent on his daughter/granddaughter as she matures. His wife maintains a perfect, wealthy family façade while exerting iron control over the family at home. The abuse includes financial abuse, physical violence and close control of the movements of all four of the other female members of the household. The two daughters are in varying states of mental and physical collapse, coping with substance abuse and unable to parent their own children.

The book has an excellent plot as a murder mystery with twists and turns keeping you guessing until the final, unexpected, revelation and subsequent actions. However much of the writing is cliched and the characters two-dimensional. The abuse falls into the stereotypes of powerful, untouchable men (another US judge) abusing family members and getting away with it.

Jane Hamilton (1988) The Book of Ruth. London, Black Swan. 978-0-552-99685-8

 

The Book of Ruth is a lovely lyrical book but tells, with increasing tension, a horrific story. Ruth is the narrator of her own story - of being a girl, a young woman, a wife and a mother in a Midwestern small town in the US.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]
[Spoiler alert]

Ruth starts her story after the events of the novel are complete and she is looking back, deciding where to begin her story. Her childhood was characterised by a controlling and emotionally abusive mother, who prefers her academically talented son, and an abusive father who leaves when the children are young.

Ruth’s development is inhibited by her mother but she finds solace in correspondence with her wealthier and childless aunt who encourages her love of books and stories. After school she joins her mother working in a dry-cleaning store.

Ruth describes meeting her husband-to-be, seen by all around as a loser. They marry but are too poor to afford their own home so stay living with Ruth’s mother. She sees only the good in him and ignores his inability to hold down a job, to contribute in any meaningful way to the household and to behave appropriately. Her pregnancy and the birth of her son brings some joy to the whole household but the tension and the underlying sense of impending violence increase until it explodes into extreme violence and murder.

Ruth’s voice is beautifully held throughout the book – a sing song way of talking and her lack of sophistication. The growing tension is so subtle it creeps under the radar until you are fully aware of it. I thought this was really appropriate in a story of domestic violence, where abuse may start small and unnoticed until it starts to escalate. The book does, however, still hold onto stereotypes of domestic abuse occurring in uneducated families in poverty.

 Awards:

• The Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for Best First Novel 1989

• Great Lakes College Association New Writer’s Award 1989

• Wisconsin Library Association Banta Book Award 1989

• Oprah’s Book Club selection for November 1996