Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-mwx4w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-04T03:27:40.243Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A kiss is not just a kiss: The isolation of the adult victim of child abuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2016

Abstract

Translating great novels to the small or large screen inevitably involves the loss of some of the insights gained from the written word and the creation of a new world. Some novels appear to be written with screen translations in mind. Others appear to be impossible to translate. In this article The Kiss, by Kathryn Harrison, is reviewed. The book provides beautifully written insights into the painful world of emotional and psychological child abuse, anorexia and bulimia. There are other important messages in the work, not the least being those that we can learn about the isolation that an abused child can suffer. Such abuse can prepare (or groom) children for later abuse as an adult.

Type
Not the last word: point and counterpoint
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Harrison, K. (1997) The Kiss: A secret life. Fourth Estate, London.Google Scholar
Goddard, C. R. (1997) When does the media coverage of child protection amount to child abuse?, Paper presented at the 6th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, 22 October, 1997, Adelaide, Australia.Google Scholar
Goddard, C. R. (1998) When does the media coverage of child protection amount to child abuse?, Paper presented at Kids First Agenda for Change Conference, April 3, 1998, Melbourne, Australia.Google Scholar
Grisham, J. (1998) The Secret Lawyer, Century, London.Google Scholar
Horspool, D. (1998) ‘Down and Out’, The Daily Telegraph, 28th March.Google Scholar
McCooey, D. (1998) ‘Secret Harmony’, The Australian Review of Books, April pp.2021.Google Scholar
Spencer, C. (1998) ‘Cardboard city slicker’, The Sunday Telegraph, 22 March.Google Scholar
Pease, L. & Goddard, C. (1996) Chapters in a collective biography of sexual abuse, Australian Social Work 49(2): 1117.Google Scholar
Powell, A. (1951–1975) A Dance to the Music of Time (12 novels from A Question of Upbringing: A Novel (1951) to Hearing Secret Harmonies (1975)), Heinemann, London.Google Scholar