Nothing is forgiven

This thesis consists of a novel called Nothing is Forgiven. Told from the perspective of two characters and crossing two time periods, this work explores the limits of familial love and the complicated fall-out of sexual abuse—secrecy, suspicion, fear, and the consuming power of denial. The novel spans two time periods, and includes two points of view in order to reflect how the harm caused by sexual abuse reverberates through time, families, and communities. In the narrative present, Astrid’s dying father, a convicted pedophile, returns home for palliative care. Astrid struggles to reconcile his crimes with her desire to see him as a kind, loving parent. As she cares for her dying father, Astrid is forced to confront her own cover-up of the abuse her father perpetrated on her best friend, Tait, when the two girls were still adolescents. A second narrative thread takes place in 1989. In the sections that take place in 1989, there are two narrative points of view: Tait and Astrid’s as they become best friends. When the reader first meets Tait, her mom has fallen into a depression and rarely comes out of her bedroom. Tait is gradually groomed by her English teacher, Astrid’s father, as she seeks attention and approval from a caring adult. To write the novel, I conducted a literature review into the research on family dynamics found in the families of pedophiles and on the trauma caused by childhood sexual abuse. My research also included an investigation into harmful pop culture representations of childhood sexual abuse, such as those that portray adolescent girls as “seductive” and representations that show the sexual abuse of adolescent girls as consensual. The research into harmful representations of childhood sexual abuse helped to inform my storytelling by allowing me to undermine the tropes of such stories and recast what it means to be a victim or perpetrator. As a feminist writer, the goal of this work is to open up conversation about the pervasiveness of rape culture and spark empathy for victims of sexual abuse.Arts, Faculty ofGraduat