JEAN PHILIP DE TENDER

I had to tick off two more books for my summer read : “Dying. A Memoir” by Cory Taylor and the story  I just read “The Incest Diary” by Anonymous.

A mouse who lives in a warm nest where it is fed will venture out and then, when frightened, rapidly return to its home. A mouse who has an uncomfortable nest – where it experiences pain and lack of food – when out of its nest in a place with warmth and food, and then suddenly frightened, will also return home, just like the other mouse. Experiments with other animals proved the same – when an animal is scared, it goes home, no matter how terrifying home is.

It is strange to read a book by “anonymous” with a cover so sober. But it kept me focused today. I had some shopping in town, like picking up this book at my favorite bookshop Passa Porta, but I had finished it, before I got home a few hours later.

Nothing can explain away incest but it is strange to read this story where the daughter enjoys serving her father and where the father is the victim of his wife being depressed. Sometimes things are just f*cked up, and with incest it is probably often the case.

I had some doubts whether this book was a testimony or just well written fiction. But this book can’t just be fiction if what is told here is so close to reality.

This book is a must read and I thought of buying some copies to hand out to friends. But then it scared  me … what if … my reader is a victim herself or himself ?

Just read it.

“The Incest Diary”, by Anonymous, Farrar Straus and Giroux, New York, 2017