INDESCRIBABLE
It’s Easy to Keep a Bad Secret
by Candice Derman
(Tafelberg, R175)
Candice Derman’s autobiography is a tough one to read, but it’s a must-read nonetheless. Not only for those who have been abused, or are in the middle of abuse, but for those who haven’t been touched by it or those who know someone who has, both men and women.
The book is an eye-opener on many levels and it truly unveils the gore, horror, confusion, darkness and how wrong this violence against women and children is.
Derman was abused by her step-father from the age of eight until she was 14 years old. She writes in the voice of that little girl and that’s where the impact of the book comes from.
It’s written with such inno-cence and brutal honesty and portrays the confusion that comes with the sexuality a little girl shouldn’t know about at that age.
It’s very graphic, thereby showing how unnatural and disturbing abuse is.
Depending on what kind of reader you are, you either won’t be able to put the book down, or you will have to stop-and-start because of the gravitas of its subject matter.
But besides the abuse, not all is bad. The eight-year-old also introduces us to some of the things that were good in her life.
And throughout the book there is the recurring dichotomy of good and bad.
The most inspiring thing about the book is how, in the midst of all that’s happening to her, Derman clings on to and believes in love.
Perhaps it is her love for and belief in love that saved her and gave her the resilience and inner strength she portrays here.
This is an urgent must-read which goes hand in hand with the necessity with which it needed to be written. – Tonight