Some books are light-hearted entertainment meant to be read over sunny days at the beach, others require just a little bit more concentration and thought.
And then there’s The Incest Diary – which might just leave you so disturbed you won’t be able to hug your dad for a week.
The book, which is set to be released on 18 July, is written by a woman, now believed to be in her 40s, reflecting on the 18-year “sexual relationship” she had with her father when she was a child and young woman.
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Bloomsbury’s UK publishing director Alexis Kirschbaum told News.com.au that what was particularly disturbing to her was that the anonymous author describes enjoying sex with her father as a teenager.
“The Incest Diary is the most disturbing book I have ever read, and it is not only because of the nature of the abuse the author recounts,” she told the website.
“It is because the author’s account is a chronicle of pleasure. I am very uncomfortable with that.”
“I know now that it is a symptom of her abuse, and it is perhaps the most unbearable symptom there is, to find pleasure in what essential destroys you.”
Bloomsbury is confident the author's "sparse, poetic, violent" account is true, with the American editor adding they spoke to old friends who the author had confided in and checked medical records, The Independent reports.
The author writes that the abuse began when she was three years old and didn't end until she was in her 20s.
She claims her mother and other family members knew of the abuse, which had been so normalised that when her family moved into a new house when she was eight years old - she expected the master bedroom was for her and her father, "and that my mother would sleep in one of the other bedrooms".
"To my mother, I was the other woman. She often told me that she wished I hadn’t been born."
However, perhaps the most shocking revelation is that she came to enjoy the sex with her father, a fact that challenged Kirschbaum.
"The Incest Diary raises complex issues about art, freedom, consent, and I believe the author’s experience must be heard for this reason," she told News.com.au.
"It matters that the world knows this has taken place. It matters that it is told in this way, with such beauty. I have endeavoured to publish the book with the care, discretion and dignity it deserves.
"I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and I couldn’t stop talking about it. I still can’t. And I won’t be the only one."
Reviews of the book have been mixed, with some finding the writing beautiful and others the structure disjointed. However, it's the content that readers have had a problem with - including a UK journalist who said it "fetishes female misery and demonises dads".
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Top Comments
How can anyone. particularly any WOMAN believe this nonsense is true? It is poorly written pornography. There are too many things that don't add up or are impossible. What woman could consider for a moment that when she was three she was capable of having an adult male vaginally penetrate her without causing serious injury? She was supposedly giving oral sex to an adult male at that age? Not likely, she'd choke.
Later she was cut inside her vagina with a large knife and recovered with no help? Ask any woman who has had an episiotomy about how long it took to recover and the antibiotics required to prevent infection.
None of this rings true, there is too much emphasis on porn style descriptions of sexual acts and sexual organs.
I think that it was probably written by a guy as an excuse to produce porn. Very poor quality porn. I notice that a lot of reviewers have come to the same opinion. It is a revolting book. I was subjected to incest from a Step-Father and so had an interest in the book. It was a misplaced interest. It offers nothing other than an aid to teenage boys' masturbatory fantasies. Sick teenagers.
My only issue is that other child sex offenders might use this book and the fact the young woman claims she enjoyed it as a defence when being brought to trial. It really does open a gigantic can of worms.