Broken Childhood: Pierre Crocquet Talks to Jackie May About Pinky Promise
By Jackie May for The Times:
Paging through Pinky Promise by Pierre Crocquet de Rosemond is not a comfortable experience. In fact, this is one of the hardest books I’ve ever read. It depicts sexual abuse against children using text and images, telling the stories of five victims and three offenders.
It is not a freak show. It’s a sensitive and thorough portrayal of this abuse.
These South African stories are told using old images of children with their identities blurred. There are edited transcripts of interviews with the subjects, their parents and their counsellors or therapists. Crocquet’s black and white photographs feature old and young men, girls and women.
One offender is grey, ageing and pictured alone, hunched over a book – resembling a pathetic figure. His story, on the other hand, is brutal and frightening.
There are documents – old school reports, letters, drawings, diary entries.
In one chapter featuring Hayley, 14, and Jen, 16, who were both molested by their biological father from an early age, there is a card Hayley wrote to him.
“REMEMBER you called me a LIRER!!! What kind of father are you!! SAD, SAD Father’s Day!! Just know I don’t trust you and you are the worst Father EVER EVER EVER.”
Each story is equally traumatising. The child who is abused is a tragic and damaged figure, and without the right combination of people and social factors, he or she will find the process of healing nearly impossible.
Some of the victims are on the road to recovery. Others are still struggling to recover. Left untreated, victims have “nothing but chaos, destruction, loneliness, and fear, all of which pose a continual thread to their lives or their intimate relationships”, psychologist Dr Marcel Londt writes in the book.
The tragedy extends to the offenders, too. The trauma they have caused is inexcusable, but each one also has a devastating story characterised by instability, unhappy childhoods or inappropriate sexual exposure often mirroring the stories of their victims.
I ask Crocquet what inspired this book. Why did he spend more than three years researching and photographing it?
“I wanted to understand trauma and healing. Sexual abuse may only affect a small number of people, but trauma is widespread and how we recover from it is what I wanted to understand.”
Sometimes, projects of this nature aim to shock. Sexual abuse is always shocking, but Crocquet has worked meticulously at producing a sensitive, multilayered and understanding portrayal of the subject matter. If it doesn’t shock, it disturbs. Enormously.
In preparation for the research, Crocquet underwent therapy before spending time with police, social workers and researchers. Only then did he meet victims and offenders.
Crocquet took care not impose himself in any way on anybody.
“That’s why this was such a thorough and slow process,” he explains.
A pinky promise is often used by children to make a heartfelt vow of secrecy. The book’s title is a metaphor for the secrecy around sexual abuse. This 280-page book unveils these transgressions, and is possible only because promises are broken and secrets revealed.
- Pinky Promise is published by Fourthwall Books
- Fourthwall Books home
Book details
- Pinky Promise by Pierre Crocquet de Rosemond
Book homepage
EAN: 9780986985034
Find this book with BOOK Finder!
Apr
Please register or log in to comment