Writing Taint: A Novel, a necessary fiction

My book, Taint: A Novel, was published by Atmosphere Press in December, 2021. My first handwritten drafts were produced for a novel writing class with Ben Brooks at Emerson College in Boston. In the year 2006. You do the calculus. A wedding, a move from Indiana to Boston, a few houses, a move to Budapest, a few kids, and a rescue dog later and the book is available for readers. The main thing to take away from this introduction is:  My writing process is slow. There were periods when I turned my attention to babies, poems, book clubs, short stories, and jam making. Not to mention my ukulele lessons. The story inside of Taint, however, wouldn’t leave me alone. 

At the heart of my novel is the story of a sexual assault. I became an advocate for sexual assault victims because of my experience as a director and occasional actor in grassroots productions of V’s (formerly Eve Ensler) The Vagina Monologues. The true stories inside that play deeply impacted me. It became imperative to raise awareness about sexual assault and domestic violence. Over time it became essential to raise consciousness about feminism and the importance of empowering women. My novel developed from this instinct to defend human rights, especially those of women and the LGBTQ community. Part of the proceeds to my book will be donated to The Trevor Project, a non-profit that supports LGBTQ youth in crisis intervention and suicide prevention. 

As I began writing this book I wanted to challenge my readers with a story that is uncomfortable. To make readers think. Thus I chose to tell the story of a male victim of sexual assault and the difficulty of seeking help or justice in a society that can barely stand to hear of a man victimized. Each time I put the manuscript away in a drawer, it refused to stay there. This story needed to be told. In my prologue I call the story a “necessary fiction,” a reference to Ann Carson’s Eros the Bittersweet.

Carson writes that “in any act of thinking, the mind must reach across this space between known and unknown. . .when the mind reaches out to know, the space of desire opens and a necessary fiction transpires.” She is trying to explain the dynamics of love and the role of fiction in eros. My reader is asked to reach beyond what they know and to make room for Taint’s love story. 

The language I use in the book is broken. It does not follow standard conventions. I wanted the language to be both bold, telling a radical story, and broken, embodying the trauma of the characters, Rebecca and Luke. Using teenage characters worked because they are ready and eager to tackle the world’s injustices. They are hungry to do the right thing especially when it is fraught and off the path their parents might have taken. I took courage in their naive voices. The decision to write a novel and join the ranks of my esteemed pantheon of authors was daunting. Speaking through the voice of Rebecca and building a world from a teen perspective freed me to “break the rules” of conventional grammar and form. 

My novel is in the hands of readers largely due to the pandemic. The world turned upside down, opened up new possibilities as well as erased previous norms and barriers. On a Budapest street at 3 am, tipsy with a friend, sneaking home long after a pandemic curfew, it suddenly occurred to me that I could publish my book. I could self-publish. I had tried half-heartedly to seek an agent in the past. Honestly, I didn’t have the patience to break into the industry.

I didn’t come up in the creative writing profession. My masters is in historical theology. I am a high school teacher. I am 47 years old. What mattered to me was bringing this story into the world on my own terms. In my own good time. My writing process is slow. The manuscript has been allowed to steep and the flavors to meld and compound over time. I am satisfied. I wouldn’t write any other way. However, now that my kids are teenagers, and I have learned what it means to bring a book to markets, my next publication will be ready in record time (for me). 

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Janet Kelley is based in Budapest and Boston. Her debut, Taint: A Novel, was published by Atmosphere Press. 

Website  https://writenowjanetkelley.com/

Twitter @hutchkelley5

TAINT: A NOVEL

Rebecca White, a senior at the top of her class at Plains High School in 2001, is a Kansas girl going places…until the rape. She wants the rapist to pay for his crime and go to jail. Unfortunately, nothing is that simple, and she wasn’t the one raped.

This is the story of how Rebecca seeks revenge for her best friend, Luke Warren, who was raped by the principal’s son, Weston. While the senior class chooses corsages and boutonnières for prom, Rebecca plots revenge against Weston. She must find a way to make him pay without revealing Luke’s secret. The solution she finds is chilling.

Set in a small town in the American Midwest when the terrorist attacks in New York City brought life to a standstill, Taint by Janet Kelley portrays how friendship and justice are tested when the unthinkable happens.

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