http://users.ox.ac.uk/~corp1468/Writing_files/HarpersMagazine-2018-03-0086949.pdf?utm_content=buffer3a9a1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

T

he Incest Diary is not an

abuse memoir, though it is

an account, a true one, of

sexual abuse. Its anonymous author

was first raped by her father when

she was three years old; they last

had sex (“consensual” sex, for what

it’s worth, though one thing the

book shows is just how little that

sometimes is) when she was twentyone.

During that final encounter, at

her childhood beach house, after

gin and tonics on the porch, she

“had an orgasm bigger than any

single one I had in my subsequent

twelve-year marriage.” Abuse memoirs

usually begin with childish innocence,

descend into a dark adult

world of sexuality and violence, and

end with some small, scrabbling

hope, a puncture of light. The Incest

Diary begins and ends in darkness.

There is for its author no self that

preexists the abuse, no self to be recovered

or redeemed. She comes

into existence as an object of her

father’s lust and sadism. She is, she

tells us more than once, his “creation”;

she was “born for him.” (Her

father’s diary entry from two days

after her birth ends, “Some day this

kid’s gonna fuck.”) There is no redemption,

only the cycling of desire

and loathing, a sickening repetition

that plays out across generations—

her father, we learn, was abused by

his grandfather in turn—and within

a single life. Near the end of the

book, we are given a description of

Carl, the author’s current partner.

He is charming and soft-spoken,

wears threadbare cardigans, reads

Kleist aloud to her on the porch,

and has a cock “just like my father’s.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3897912&forum_id=2#35440315)

and slime” of strawberry jam on her father’s penis “mixing with the sweet and slime of the man”; the “smoky canvas” of the mattress on which she is raped; the rustle of clothes falling to the floor; the comforting perfume of her mother’s Nivea bottle"

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3897912&forum_id=2#35440324)

how the fuck is this moniker not taken yet?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3897912&forum_id=2#35440334)

have an orgasm without seeing her

father’s face, “as if my ultimate

erotic experience is being raped by

the man who created me.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3897912&forum_id=2#35440397)