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Dentata: A Novel
Some victims aren't victims for long.
Some victims lie in wait.
Some victims bite back.
Dentata takes over where Jane. left off, continuing the transgressive fiction tradition that introduced readers to The Circle, a rough and tumble group of women who live life on the edge—reveling in mental illness, both real and self-induced, and partying until the sun comes up. Dentata follows Elisabeth, the only member of the group raised in suburbia, as trauma transforms her from the innocent mother hen to the most dangerous of them all.
Some victims lie in wait.
Some victims bite back.
Dentata takes over where Jane. left off, continuing the transgressive fiction tradition that introduced readers to The Circle, a rough and tumble group of women who live life on the edge—reveling in mental illness, both real and self-induced, and partying until the sun comes up. Dentata follows Elisabeth, the only member of the group raised in suburbia, as trauma transforms her from the innocent mother hen to the most dangerous of them all.
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Published February 10, 2019
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March 18, 2019
Dentata opens with a harrowing account of the immediate aftermath of a rape. It is a vivid representation of a reaction to violation. From this beginning the book viscerally chronicles the impact of such an assault and highlights the psychological unravelling which occurs as a response. To say that the main character, Elizabeth, acts out of character as a result is somewhat of an understatement.
The predominant motivator is rage. The enforced powerlessness and victimhood inflicted causes Elizabeth to seek a path of retribution. In doing this she concocts a violent and horrific method designed to wreak revenge on not just the perpetrator of the act against her but anyone who she judges worthy. The cost of trauma is written large in her actions, a woman sent into a spiral of hurt and hate, justifying to herself the violence she craves to inflict, her psyche pushed to the edge by the depth of damage received.
Surrounding Elizabeth are a group of women the author categorises under the banner of The Circle, including characters from Polcastro’s previous, and very enjoyable, novel, Jane. In their own ways they come into play as either helping or hindering Elizabeth, both in coming to terms with what has happened to her, and in assisting her complete her unhinged quest. A further demonstration of the potential misjudgements she is making comes in the form of a much younger woman, dealing with her own problems, who becomes the focus of what could be perceived as an inappropriate relationship.
The novel does a supreme job of illustrating someone becoming ever more out of control, while at the same time seeking to gain a type of ultimate control back. The extremity of impact of a rape dictates that any repayment in kind needs to be as devastating and terrifying as the initial crime, and the book explores very graphically just what this implies. Whether retribution can ever be satisfyingly fulfilled for a violation of this nature is up for debate, as is the wisdom of chasing such a thing, and Polcastro delivers a provocative account which raises all the right questions.
Having said that, this is the story of one woman and her particular experience and shouldn’t be taken as a blanket commentary on the issues raised. Polcastro makes this clear upfront, stating as much at the start of the book, very aware that every work of art faces potential scrutiny for its representation of cultural and societal considerations. While it depresses me that such caveats are necessary, it is interesting to have the author’s thoughts on a work containing harsh and potentially controversial material, especially as she mentions the novel is somewhat a response to representation of rape throughout cinema.
A nasty, gripping story, taken to wild extremes, with a deep and psychologically believable account of the very real betrayal and trauma of rape. More emotionally impacting than I expected, Dentata is at times devastating, very blackly funny, repulsive, and heartbreaking.
The predominant motivator is rage. The enforced powerlessness and victimhood inflicted causes Elizabeth to seek a path of retribution. In doing this she concocts a violent and horrific method designed to wreak revenge on not just the perpetrator of the act against her but anyone who she judges worthy. The cost of trauma is written large in her actions, a woman sent into a spiral of hurt and hate, justifying to herself the violence she craves to inflict, her psyche pushed to the edge by the depth of damage received.
Surrounding Elizabeth are a group of women the author categorises under the banner of The Circle, including characters from Polcastro’s previous, and very enjoyable, novel, Jane. In their own ways they come into play as either helping or hindering Elizabeth, both in coming to terms with what has happened to her, and in assisting her complete her unhinged quest. A further demonstration of the potential misjudgements she is making comes in the form of a much younger woman, dealing with her own problems, who becomes the focus of what could be perceived as an inappropriate relationship.
The novel does a supreme job of illustrating someone becoming ever more out of control, while at the same time seeking to gain a type of ultimate control back. The extremity of impact of a rape dictates that any repayment in kind needs to be as devastating and terrifying as the initial crime, and the book explores very graphically just what this implies. Whether retribution can ever be satisfyingly fulfilled for a violation of this nature is up for debate, as is the wisdom of chasing such a thing, and Polcastro delivers a provocative account which raises all the right questions.
Having said that, this is the story of one woman and her particular experience and shouldn’t be taken as a blanket commentary on the issues raised. Polcastro makes this clear upfront, stating as much at the start of the book, very aware that every work of art faces potential scrutiny for its representation of cultural and societal considerations. While it depresses me that such caveats are necessary, it is interesting to have the author’s thoughts on a work containing harsh and potentially controversial material, especially as she mentions the novel is somewhat a response to representation of rape throughout cinema.
A nasty, gripping story, taken to wild extremes, with a deep and psychologically believable account of the very real betrayal and trauma of rape. More emotionally impacting than I expected, Dentata is at times devastating, very blackly funny, repulsive, and heartbreaking.
April 11, 2019
I haven't seen a ton of rape/revenge movies, and before Dentata I can't think of any books I'd ever read that fit the genre, but I do have some familiarity with it, you know, I've seen the original I Spit on Your Grave, the remake and its sequels, and Almost Mercy, Revenge, The Last House on the Left (original and remake.)
Etc.
For the most part, other than the attacks that precede the killings, rape/revenge movies aren't that different from slasher films, really, except that you're meant to root for the killer, and meant to believe that her victims--"victims"? is that still the word, in this situation..?--had it coming. Here is the killer's origin story, now behold her improbably complex killing spree.
I'm not saying whether the men these women kill do or don't deserve it, okay, that's for their victims to say, and the law I guess. I'm just saying that sometimes the protagonists in these movies make choices that don't necessarily add up, for me.
(For example, in the remake of I Spit on Your Grave, one of the men Jennifer avenges herself against "only" watched, and filmed her many assaults. She ties him to a tree, hooks his eyes open, smears fish guts on his face, and leaves him to be pecked to death by crows while his camera looks on, impassive. These things take some planning, and and she was only missing for a few days at most, and we don't even know how she acquired a bunch of new outfits and toiletries and that way out in the boonies, given that all her possessions were destroyed by her attackers, and she didn't turn to anyone for help.)
(How did she even get a new car? Oh, I'm overthinking it. Let's move on.)
There's a major difference between Dentata and the other rape/revenge stories I've been exposed to, though, and that is this: throughout the book, the focus never wavers from Beth, the victim turned attacker. (Sort of. I'll get back to that later-ish.)
Maybe that seems like an obvious thing to say, but with few exceptions, the woman who's been raped in one of these stories is a cipher: she has no personality to speak of, she has no life of her own before, during or after her attack, and you never see her coping (realistically) with the aftermath of what's been done to her. The rapist might as well have stolen her bike.
In the context of these stories, incredibly, only the men really matter.
For example, the men in the remake of I Spit on Your Grave are a close-knit group of lifelong friends operating within a complex dynamic. Each attacks Jennifer in his own way, according to his nature. Each man is killed in a way that's meant to be justice specific to what he did.
And Jennifer... is a brunette. (Yes, yes, and she's a writer, but we only hear one line of her book, and even the psycho hillbillies know it's shit. That's not important right now!)
Dentata's Beth wouldn't pass The Purity Test by a huge huge margin, but even so, she's considered the goody-goody among her rougher, more jaded circle of friends. She was raised in a churchy household in a small town, never really rebelled till she realized she's gay. (I say "rebelled" in the context of what it meant to her family and community, not to imply that coming out to your parents is on the level of getting a tramp stamp.)
(Here I feel I should add that I believe the book to be part of a series..? Goodreads told me so. You absolutely don't need to have read the first book to get the most out of this one, I promise and swear, but I guess it might offer a bit more shading to Beth's role in her friend group--not to suggest that Polcastro doesn't do a fantastic job of catching you up on that without ramming a lot of exposition up yer bum. It's pretty much seamless.)
Beth works in the same high school she once attended, she lives in a semi-responsible single mother's unfinished basement, she dresses fairly conservatively, she drives a sensible car, she owns what seems like a lot of crafting supplies... and she runs with some borderline dodgy people--is borderline dodgy herself sometimes, on a smaller scale.
Familiar.
Her rape is incidental; she didn't do anything "wrong," didn't make any "mistakes," didn't walk down the wrong street, get in the wrong car, trust the wrong guy. Yes, she got drunk and passed out at a party, but her rapist is some junkie rando who broke in through the bedroom window and found her on the floor instead of an iPad or something.
There are a lot of things someone might consider doing to their rapist if they ever had the chance, and if they were the sort of person who wanted one. (For example, in the remake of The Last House on the Left, the dad microwaves somebody's head, it couldn't possibly happen, your microwave won't operate if the door's not closed, why did you get me started!!!)
Beth's anger and thirst for vengeance lead her to fashion a bear trap device that she inserts into her vagina. (And here you might be reminded of the movie Teeth, but for one thing, that's a comedy, which this book absolutely is not, and for another, those teeth grew in the girl's ladybusiness, okay. Beth had to come up with designs, man. Beth had to weld. Beth logged the womanhours.)
Getting back in bed with a rapist isn't what I'd ever want to do, but it's not the first time I've encountered this idea, okay, Zoe in American Horror Story: Coven did the same thing, in an open hospital ward, even. Could've just pulled the plug on the guy or shoved a pillow over his face, chose to more or less literally fuck his brains out.
And you know, Beth does a lot of things in Dentata that didn't necessarily add up for me straight away. She starts abusing drugs, she enters into a relationship with an underage student in her (sort of) care, she fucks some of her friends over pretty hard, she starts targeting other sex offenders in her area... When I read these things, my knee-jerk reaction was "What the farg are you doing, Beth, are you out of your mind?"
Well... yeah, friendo. Those are the haps.
What fascinated me about the book is, for me, the same sensibility comes through in Polcastro's artistic choices, you know, it's written in a very tense, claustrophobic sort of way which read as simple style to me at first, but grew to feel like the atmosphere around Beth in the wake of her assault. There's not so much as a split-second whiff of humour in the book, and nor is there in Beth's life, anymore. It's written in second person, but instead of being irritated by that, I appreciated it as a representation of Beth's growing detachment from everything around her, starting with herself and spiraling outward.
I wish Polcastro hadn't turned to "little did she know" moments here and there, but there aren't a ton of them, and they do fill in the very few gaps that would've been in the narrative otherwise.
Obviously Dentata wasn't a fun read for me, and not something I'm going to read again, but I found it so, so interesting, and PS: I bought two other books by the author some time ago, but haven't gotten around to reading them. It's a bit embarrassing, my way of doing that, but now I'm glad I did, because I'd like to read more of her work, and I've already got some on deck.
Etc.
For the most part, other than the attacks that precede the killings, rape/revenge movies aren't that different from slasher films, really, except that you're meant to root for the killer, and meant to believe that her victims--"victims"? is that still the word, in this situation..?--had it coming. Here is the killer's origin story, now behold her improbably complex killing spree.
I'm not saying whether the men these women kill do or don't deserve it, okay, that's for their victims to say, and the law I guess. I'm just saying that sometimes the protagonists in these movies make choices that don't necessarily add up, for me.
(For example, in the remake of I Spit on Your Grave, one of the men Jennifer avenges herself against "only" watched, and filmed her many assaults. She ties him to a tree, hooks his eyes open, smears fish guts on his face, and leaves him to be pecked to death by crows while his camera looks on, impassive. These things take some planning, and and she was only missing for a few days at most, and we don't even know how she acquired a bunch of new outfits and toiletries and that way out in the boonies, given that all her possessions were destroyed by her attackers, and she didn't turn to anyone for help.)
(How did she even get a new car? Oh, I'm overthinking it. Let's move on.)
There's a major difference between Dentata and the other rape/revenge stories I've been exposed to, though, and that is this: throughout the book, the focus never wavers from Beth, the victim turned attacker. (Sort of. I'll get back to that later-ish.)
Maybe that seems like an obvious thing to say, but with few exceptions, the woman who's been raped in one of these stories is a cipher: she has no personality to speak of, she has no life of her own before, during or after her attack, and you never see her coping (realistically) with the aftermath of what's been done to her. The rapist might as well have stolen her bike.
In the context of these stories, incredibly, only the men really matter.
For example, the men in the remake of I Spit on Your Grave are a close-knit group of lifelong friends operating within a complex dynamic. Each attacks Jennifer in his own way, according to his nature. Each man is killed in a way that's meant to be justice specific to what he did.
And Jennifer... is a brunette. (Yes, yes, and she's a writer, but we only hear one line of her book, and even the psycho hillbillies know it's shit. That's not important right now!)
Dentata's Beth wouldn't pass The Purity Test by a huge huge margin, but even so, she's considered the goody-goody among her rougher, more jaded circle of friends. She was raised in a churchy household in a small town, never really rebelled till she realized she's gay. (I say "rebelled" in the context of what it meant to her family and community, not to imply that coming out to your parents is on the level of getting a tramp stamp.)
(Here I feel I should add that I believe the book to be part of a series..? Goodreads told me so. You absolutely don't need to have read the first book to get the most out of this one, I promise and swear, but I guess it might offer a bit more shading to Beth's role in her friend group--not to suggest that Polcastro doesn't do a fantastic job of catching you up on that without ramming a lot of exposition up yer bum. It's pretty much seamless.)
Beth works in the same high school she once attended, she lives in a semi-responsible single mother's unfinished basement, she dresses fairly conservatively, she drives a sensible car, she owns what seems like a lot of crafting supplies... and she runs with some borderline dodgy people--is borderline dodgy herself sometimes, on a smaller scale.
Familiar.
Her rape is incidental; she didn't do anything "wrong," didn't make any "mistakes," didn't walk down the wrong street, get in the wrong car, trust the wrong guy. Yes, she got drunk and passed out at a party, but her rapist is some junkie rando who broke in through the bedroom window and found her on the floor instead of an iPad or something.
There are a lot of things someone might consider doing to their rapist if they ever had the chance, and if they were the sort of person who wanted one. (For example, in the remake of The Last House on the Left, the dad microwaves somebody's head, it couldn't possibly happen, your microwave won't operate if the door's not closed, why did you get me started!!!)
Beth's anger and thirst for vengeance lead her to fashion a bear trap device that she inserts into her vagina. (And here you might be reminded of the movie Teeth, but for one thing, that's a comedy, which this book absolutely is not, and for another, those teeth grew in the girl's ladybusiness, okay. Beth had to come up with designs, man. Beth had to weld. Beth logged the womanhours.)
Getting back in bed with a rapist isn't what I'd ever want to do, but it's not the first time I've encountered this idea, okay, Zoe in American Horror Story: Coven did the same thing, in an open hospital ward, even. Could've just pulled the plug on the guy or shoved a pillow over his face, chose to more or less literally fuck his brains out.
And you know, Beth does a lot of things in Dentata that didn't necessarily add up for me straight away. She starts abusing drugs, she enters into a relationship with an underage student in her (sort of) care, she fucks some of her friends over pretty hard, she starts targeting other sex offenders in her area... When I read these things, my knee-jerk reaction was "What the farg are you doing, Beth, are you out of your mind?"
Well... yeah, friendo. Those are the haps.
What fascinated me about the book is, for me, the same sensibility comes through in Polcastro's artistic choices, you know, it's written in a very tense, claustrophobic sort of way which read as simple style to me at first, but grew to feel like the atmosphere around Beth in the wake of her assault. There's not so much as a split-second whiff of humour in the book, and nor is there in Beth's life, anymore. It's written in second person, but instead of being irritated by that, I appreciated it as a representation of Beth's growing detachment from everything around her, starting with herself and spiraling outward.
I wish Polcastro hadn't turned to "little did she know" moments here and there, but there aren't a ton of them, and they do fill in the very few gaps that would've been in the narrative otherwise.
Obviously Dentata wasn't a fun read for me, and not something I'm going to read again, but I found it so, so interesting, and PS: I bought two other books by the author some time ago, but haven't gotten around to reading them. It's a bit embarrassing, my way of doing that, but now I'm glad I did, because I'd like to read more of her work, and I've already got some on deck.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 10, 2024
I really enjoyed Jane., it brought together a group of empowered women, tough, violent and not standing for any nonsense, so I was looking forward the second book to see how they were doing and how much partying they were getting up to. Even though I knew the basis for this story I was still shocked, how one moment brings back a life of trauma to the surface, sparking a spiral of vengeful madness that has no chance of being stopped. The revenge seems to take on a life of it’s own, daring Beth to go further and further, becoming more destructive, even to those she holds dear, until the conclusion almost explodes off the page.
I expected this to be a book on revenge but it goes way beyond that, this is all about the PTSD that has built up over time, the shame of the thoughts going around in your head, being surrounded by friends and still alone and losing all semblance of self. The writing is impeccable, it draws you in so quickly, strong characters and hard hitting plot makes the pages just whiz by and before you know it you are done. The question I have now… is there a third book? How with Beth’s friends deal with the fallout from Dentata?
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
I expected this to be a book on revenge but it goes way beyond that, this is all about the PTSD that has built up over time, the shame of the thoughts going around in your head, being surrounded by friends and still alone and losing all semblance of self. The writing is impeccable, it draws you in so quickly, strong characters and hard hitting plot makes the pages just whiz by and before you know it you are done. The question I have now… is there a third book? How with Beth’s friends deal with the fallout from Dentata?
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2024...
August 30, 2021
This is a novel of rape revenge - there is no sugar coating it. The rape itself is not graphic, but the trauma that manifests itself afterward is detailed in minute detail. I marked this as having spoilers because some of what I say is revealed in the plot, and could be spoilerish. Beth, after being raped, is violated in more than just a physical way. When she does let some friends know, there are those that support her wholeheartedly and then there are those who blame her for the assault, adding a layer of betrayal upon her trauma. There is a rapid progression of a desire for revenge, fueled by anger. Towards the end of the book, it becomes harder to connect to her as a victim, because her actions no longer become rational and it's a hard and fast downward spiral. The writing is good, but the subject matter is hard to take. There is a lot of sexual violence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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