I'll never call him dad again Turning our family trauma of sexual assault and chemical submission into a collective fight

The daughter of Dominique Pelicot, whose 2024 trial in France made international news, debuts with a chilling memoir. Darian documents the year following the 2020 discovery by police that for a decade her father had drugged her mother Gisèle and raped her while she was unconscious, and invited more than 70 men from an online sex forum to also sexually assault her. Organized like a diary, the book's earliest entry recounts Darian's final communication from her father--an innocuous Facebook comment--the day before his arrest for "trying to film up women's skirts." The horrific extent of her father's crime unfolds in Darian's day-by-day account like a waking nightmare: the "over twenty-thousand pornographic photos and videos," many of her mother, found on his hard drive; the grotesque new explanation for her mother's "episodes of amnesia"; and the unearthing of naked photographs of Darian herself. Darian makes visceral her "crushing double burden" as child of both "victim" and "tormenter," which strains her relationship with Gisèle, who struggles to accept that Darian might also have been drugged and raped by Pelicot. Writing that such "chemical submission" in the "familial sphere" is more widespread than many realize, Darian advocates for better care for survivors. This is a courageous effort to bring "unsayable" abuses to light. (Mar.)

The daughter of the infamous French rapist was also his victim. Many will remember the stoic visage of Gisèle Pelicot last fall outside the Avignon courthouse, where her husband, Dominique, and 50 other men were convicted of crimes that included myriad instances of raping her while she was drugged to unconsciousness. In this memoir documenting Darian's experiences, from first learning about the crimes in November 2020 to just before the case went to trial in September 2024, she writes, "I bear a crushing double burden. I am the child of both the victim and her tormentor." Among the horrifying revelations the investigation uncovered was that she too was one of her once-beloved father's victims--photos of her were among the cache of pornographic images he posted, presumably taken when she was drugged. There were also images of both of her brothers' wives. This diary-style account takes us through the emotional turmoil faced by Darian, her young son, and her brother as well as the damage to her relationship with her mother, who wasn't easily able to accept the idea that Dominique had abused his daughter. To illustrate the complexity of her mother's feelings during this period, Darian describes her making up a bag of clean clothes and personal items for her husband and delivering it to the prison. "I learn all this with disbelief. My mother is fussing over the man who allowed her to be raped for ten years running." Devastated by the ever-increasing bad news, Darian ended up in a psychiatric ward for a couple of days, but ultimately she found two coping mechanisms--writing and activism. A second memoir is being published in France, and to further promote awareness, Darian has co-founded a movement called Stop Chemical Submission (#MendorsPas): Don't Put Me Under. Darian's account of her family's experience is testimony to the human capacity for depravity and suffering--and resilience. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.