Kate Elizabeth Russell

Kate Elizabeth Russell discusses her highly anticipated debut novel, My Dark Vanessa, about an affair between a 15-year-old student and her 42-year-old English teacher at a boarding school in Maine. The narrative flows between 2000, when the affair takes root, and 2017, when The MeToo movement forces Vanessa, as a struggling thirtysomething, “to confront the abusive relationship that defines her sexual and romantic past” (starred review). Then our editors join with their reading recommendations for the week, including books by Maya Tatsukawa, Samantha Mabry, Andy Greene, and Hilary Mantel.