Tag Archives: domestic abuse

PUBLICATION DAY SPECIAL: THE GILDED CAGE BY LUISA A JONES

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The Gilded Cage emphatically introduces Luisa A Jones as a fresh and modern voice in historical fiction. It’s hard-hitting, pulling no punches in the way it deals with the domestic violence that is at the heart of this Edwardian story, and the author doesn’t hold back when it comes to the love scenes either.

When Rosamund’s circumstances force her into marriage with Sir Lucien Fitznorton she is too young and innocent to even imagine the horrors that await, sharing her life with this controlling man. At the beginning of the story she is broken, with no allies, but that slowly begins to change when she uses Sir Lucien’s absence to learn to drive. Society and the servants consider her a little mad, but to her it represents a freedom she could never have imagined and she begins to recover at least a little confidence.

Although the story is a little slow to start, later it rattles along, its depiction of life in an Edwardian country house meticulously drawn, and by the end I was quite breathless to know what would happen.

What lingers most in the memory about this book are the brutally realistic depictions of the violence Rosamund has to suffer, particularly contrasted with the tenderness in some of the scenes which follow as she discovers her sexuality for the first time. I asked Luisa why she had chosen to write the book this way.

I was aware when approaching publishers for this book that certain aspects would be too strong for some readers, but I felt it was essential to tell Rosamund’s story honestly, and not to shrink away from depicting the harrowing impact of abuse. It was important to me to have her ultimately finding her own agency, and for her to experience tenderness and pleasure, despite her earlier dreadful experiences.

Rosamund’s story was inspired by several people I know well who have been raped and/or otherwise abused. I was, and always will be, incensed by the idea of anyone deliberately subjecting another person to sexual, mental or physical harm. A disturbingly high proportion of women report that they have experienced at least one incident of sexual assault in their lifetime. Rape within marriage was only made illegal in Britain under the Sexual Offences Act of 2003, and until at least the 1990s the law held that by marrying, a wife was effectively consenting to sex whenever her husband wanted it. Marital rape is still legal in many countries.

Alarmingly, a survey in 2018 by YouGov revealed that a third of British people believed non-consensual sex wasn’t rape if it didn’t involve violence, even though anyone with any understanding of psychology will tell you that freezing and flopping are common responses to threat, along with the perhaps more well-known responses of fight or flight. The same survey showed that a quarter of Britons believed non-consensual sex within marriage isn’t rape. I can’t read those statistics and not feel deeply angry.

I am aware that many will find aspects of Rosamund’s experience uncomfortable to read. If I upset any reader, I feel for them. Those scenes are included in the hope that her story will challenge people to rethink, and highlight that nobody should be used as another person’s sexual plaything. Everyone should have the right to decide who touches their body, whatever they wore when they went out for the evening, no matter whether they’ve flirted with the other person, and whether or not they once agreed to marry them.

Most of all, I hope I have honoured the real-life survivors I know and love, and that readers will not perceive Rosamund solely as a victim. I hope they will rejoice with her when she experiences kindness and feel uplifted at the end of the novel. For me, she is a victor.

DIANE HARDING ON HER HARROWING MEMOIR, ALWAYS IN THE DARK

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My memoir ‘Always in the Dark’ tells of secrets, scandal and survival.  It is an extraordinary account of my bizarre homelife and is my search for answers from a family shrouded in secrets.  A mysterious tale of growing up, unbeknown to me, with my mother trapped in a menage a trois on a continent from which there was no escape, it tells of her selflessness, sacrifice and of putting others first.

After my parents emigrated post war, my idyllic and cosy childhood was ruined at the age of three after the arrival of a mysterious and glamorous visitor with my roller coaster existence and mother’s mental breakdown adding to my confusion during my formative years.

Although the first half of the mystery unfolded in the leafy suburbs of Cape Town, after moving to England at the age of fourteen the scandal continued to follow us around.  It was obvious my home life was a weird one and it was only after my mother’s death decades later that I rummaged through her secret box and discovered a wealth of staggering information I did not know about, the unimaginable circumstances cleverly hidden from me during my early years.  But I was a young child when it all began and the fact that I had lived my life to the point of naivety was beyond baffling.  But it was my mother’s life-long confidante, her sister Linda, who supplied me with many missing pieces of the puzzle and whose revelations helped clarify many of my childhood mysteries including the reason why I was to be an only child.

Making my heinous discovery was difficult to grasp and the realisation that I had lived through the trauma as the child of the victim equally upsetting; rage, bitterness, anger and a disbelief that my childhood had been dismantled by greed and my mother treated with such humiliation consuming me.  And because of the hurt and embarrassment my shocking revelation was not something I felt willing to talk about, least of all with my husband, a secret I kept from him for two long years.

The search for the truth sent me on numerous missions to talk with close friends and family only to discover that I was the last to know, hence the title ‘Always in the Dark’.

For too long domestic abuse has been a hidden issue and in order to raise aware of the horrors of coercive control I am now on a mission to encourage people to open up and tell their story which for me has been life changing.  It is a known fact that it is particularly hard for older people to open up and will experience abuse for twice as long before seeking help compared to those who are younger.  Writing my memoir has not been an easy ride but out of it has come great solace which has allowed me to come to terms with my past and move on.  I did not want to be someone with a massive grudge, determined never to allow my past to spoil my future.

This is a book about final freedom, my openness which I hope will help others to come forward and speak out and to understand that however traumatic a situation there is hope and a way through to happiness.  I am a firm believer that to experience the tough times gives us backbone in order to cope with what life throws our way.