Consent by Vanessa Springora

In Consent, Vanessa Springora delivers a heartbreaking, startling account of her adolescent relationship with one of France’s former literary stars, Gabriel Matzneff, when Matzneff was 50 and Springora was only 14 years old. What stands out in this memoir is the complicity of adults in Matzneff’s crimes. Springora’s mother, famous philosophers, renowned television personalities, politicians, and many in the literary establishment were not only aware that Matzneff was grooming young adolescent girls and boys; these powerful and respected people heaped praise upon the novels and diaries in which Matzneff chronicled his abuse.

After decades of torment and stalking, seeing her name and likeness used in book after book to enhance her abuser’s literary reputation and fame, Springora finds the strength to tell her own story and take hold of the narrative. A clear picture of the toll sexual abuse takes on survivors, and a stark rebuke of the ingrained culture in French intellectual circles that condoned and celebrated the abuse.

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Companion read: La Familia Grande by Camille Kouchner

Thanks to Netgalley and HarperVia for providing a review copy of this book.