The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature

Joseph Valente and Margot Gayle Backus's The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable digs fearlessly into a centurylong literary canon of abused Irish children, unmasking and unmaking the psychological operations that have allowed such abuse, as Fintan O'Toole writes in the book's preface, to long be Ireland's shameful "unknown known" (xiii).

-- Renee Fox * Irish Literary Supplement *

The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature is a beautifully written and intellectually stimulating book that casts much needed light on the representation of the child sexual scandal in modern Irish literature. For anyone with the slightest interest in the intersection between literature, psychology, cultural theory and sociology and the light they can cast on Irish society, this book is a must read, provided that one understands that it is a highly academic study not intended for a general audience. It shows how in many respects the trauma associated with child abuse in Ireland is still at an early stage, and that healing will only come slowly.

-- Eamon Maher * Criminal Law & Criminal Justice Review *

Through intricate and rigorous close readings of literature, ranging from James Joyce to Anne Enright, and nuanced applications of psychoanalytic theory, Valente and Backus outline the way that Irish literature engages modern social and cultural discourse, as well as silence and abstraction, to identify sexual trauma in Ireland since the late nineteenth century. Just as they consistently suggest that intracommunity recognition of child sex scandal in Ireland is essential to recovering the social repression of trauma, they also offer academics a reminder of how we might save the Humanities from dissolution and despair: write, think, and witness together. . . . Put simply: we need more books like this in Irish Studies.

-- Ellen Scheible * New Hibernia Review *

The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature should be required reading for students of Irish literature and history. . . . I would also recommend that The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature: Writing the Unspeakable, be recommended reading for psychiatrists, therapists and counselors working with victims of child sex abuse and institutional abuse. As is often the case, writers can illuminate the path forward in understanding.

-- Adrienne Leavy * Reading Irela