When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy
A young woman marries a handsome university professor after falling in love. To be with him, she relocates to a coastal village soaked with rain, but once they are alone, she learns that her ideal husband is actually an ideal monster. She vows to fight back as he starts beating her into submission and as her family urges her to stay in the marriage—a resistance that will either kill her or set her free. Yet hope keeps her alive.
This book is based on the author’s personal experience. In a terrifying yet powerful and humorous novel that not only addresses one woman’s battle against horror and loneliness but also serves as a reminder of how fiction and stories can help us escape, writing becomes her salvation and an ultimate act of resistance.
When I Hit You by Meena Kandasamy
Amazon.com
Deepa notes the frequently critical response from some middle-class feminists who maintain that Kandasamy should have retaliated and that they would never experience such harassment. These are women who haven’t met or even realized they’ve met battered women. Not everyone will enjoy this book. It could cause trauma in some people. It is difficult to read a personal description of abuse against a woman. I find a lot of value in this book. It explains the reasoning and thinking processes used by abusers, neighbours, and even close friends and family. The reader will be persuaded that abuse victims are neither weak nor at fault. The victimized Kandasamy in this instance had no helpers. To save herself, she had to. It is a tale of tenacity.
This book examines an abusive marriage in a smart but unrelentingly cruel manner. She felt intense, visceral suffering on all levels—emotional, physical, and existential. Her writing is bright, strong, and poetic, and she delves into the linguistic roots and ramifications of both the language she uses and the language her husband abuses her with, at one point stating.
