A Feat of Creative Resistance

• Our Little Secret
• Emily Carrington
• Drawn & Quarterly (2022)

[Editor’s note: This story and the accompanying illustrated book interiors contain accounts of sexual violence involving a man and a teenage girl. We invite readers and especially survivors to take space to take care of themselves as they move through this piece. Vancouver’s Women Against Violence Against Women operates a 24-hour crisis line for immediate support. They can be reached locally at 604-255-6344 or on their toll-free national line: 1-877-392-7583.]

Our Little Secret begins with an infestation of flies. In the book’s introduction, author Emily Carrington writes, “When I look back. What really stands out are the flies. They were epic!” It’s a fitting symbol for the unsurfaced trauma that marked much of her life.

After her parents divorced, Carrington made the decision to live with her father, while her younger brother stayed with their mother. At age 15, she moved with her father to a rural part of the Maritimes, where they planned to build a log house. At first, life on Prince Edward Island offered her a degree of freedom and independence. She had her horse, her sheep and the natural world at her doorstep.

But living in a poorly insulated trailer with no running water and little money meant that Carrington and her hapless father struggled to survive the winter months. Then a neighbour befriended the pair, offering to help finish the log house. Things appeared innocent at first. But the man’s predatory behaviour soon surfaced, setting the stage for horrific acts of abuse.

Many decades later, a chance encounter with her abuser on a ferry sends Carrington on a quest for restorative justice. Our Little Secret moves through decades of her life as she contends not only with her past but also her attempts to find justice through the legal system. The initial violation she experienced as a teen is compounded by the inability of the police and lawyers to hold her abuser accountable. Finally, it is her own act of creative resistance that allows Carrington to transform the raw material of her memories into a singular work of art.

Homeric in its scope and tenacity, this extraordinary memoir follows in the tradition of Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, Mary Karr’s The Liars’ Club and Elly Danica’s Don’t: A Woman’s Word in summoning and ultimately resolving the traumatic experience that marked Emily’s adolescence.

The Tyee asked Carrington about the process of writing and drawing to create her book. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Tyee: I was struck by a number of things, but first and foremost by your drawings that tell another, deeper layer of the story than words alone could. I was curious to know if telling your story in the form of a graphic novel allowed you to access your memories and experiences in a different way?

Emily Carrington: Yes, the graphic novel format allowed me to access my memories and feelings in a much deeper way than words alone. With poetry for example, the images and memories came, but then I had to work to translate those images and memories into words.

With the graphic novel format, I was able to take those images and memories and draw them directly onto the page. I could draw the memory itself, while also using the way I drew to express the feelings I had about it.

I could vary my linework, change the viewing angle, make an image close up or far away, use facial expressions and hand gestures, change the pace of the storytelling, and even include drawings of imaginary animals and other forms of symbolism. At times it felt like I was in a virtual reality computer game, able to walk through and examine memories from the past as if I were actually there.

What does the act of drawing offer you that’s different from other literary forms?

I imagine this experience will vary from person to person, but the act of drawing allows me to completely immerse myself in the world that I am drawing, while mostly shutting out the real world. It allows me to explore the world of memories rather than just remembering it.

The images that come to me are not crystal clear like a photograph, but they are clear enough for me to draw. I feel that the memory and my feelings are being conveyed as clearly as can possibly be done, leaving nothing unsaid. The physical act of drawing for me is usually a calming feeling and flows fairly easily, whereas sitting at my laptop and writing is much harder work!

I know you mention in the book that flies were some of the first images that arrived. Were there other kinds of surprises like this, in terms of revisiting your memories as a younger person? Did certain things resurface that you didn't expect?

Yes, I was surprised by the images that came to me almost on a daily basis as I drew the book. Some were symbolic images and some real.

I’ll give some examples of real ones. Some were simple, like the image of an ash tray that came to me as I drew one panel of my father smoking a cigarette. As I drew him, an image popped into my mind. I suddenly remembered the round ashtrays everyone had in their homes back then, usually made of metal or glass and usually having three grooves in the outer edge for people to set their burning cigarettes in.

Some memories were more difficult though. An example of that is when I revisited in my mind the scene where Richard physically grabbed me in the woods. I revisited the scene to try to dig deeper and remember more to make that section of the book more detailed. I suddenly had a sensory flashback as I probed the memory more deeply. Richard was behind me and holding on to me. I suddenly remembered he was wearing a large puffy winter jacket, not the wool sweater I had originally depicted him wearing.

I could feel the puffy formlessness of the coat against some parts of my body, and the firmness of his thick arms and legs pressing against other parts of me. I remember the terror I felt knowing this immensely strong man was behind me, holding me, and I couldn’t see him, or even really tell where his body was. I was terrified because I knew I couldn’t escape, and I remembered how the soft formlessness of the jacket contrasted with the muscular strength of his body and arms and legs.

When I remembered this it was like I was experiencing it all over again. It was too intense, so I didn’t venture into that memory again, and I didn’t change the drawing in the book. Even remembering it to write this paragraph is difficult.

The second half of the book that documents your struggles with the legal system in Canada in finding justice is often quite shocking in its own way. Where did you find the emotional resources to continue your fight?

Yes, I have to say that after going through the legal battle, my view of the legal system has changed a lot. Lawyers and others are making a staggering amount of money off the suffering of others, while the victims rarely get what they deserve, and sometimes get nothing at all. I couldn’t believe how many mistakes they made, too!

The slowness of the system drags you down as the expenses drain huge amounts of money from your bank account. It eats away at your reserves and stretches your sanity to its very limits.

I still suffer from trauma inflicted on me by one of the lawyers I hired. I had to pay therapists to help me just survive it, and some of the therapists also didn’t do a very good job, or blatantly misrepresented themselves, so that was an emotional and financial drain as well. I was lucky to have friends and family members who would listen when I felt I couldn’t take any more and would comfort me as I would talk and sometimes cry to them over the phone.

At one point in the writing when I felt especially overwhelmed, I imagined the future readers of my book as cheering me on, and that helped me keep going. I also want to say how helpful it was when my former drawing instructors would give me encouragement, even after the courses were done. I am so grateful to them!

Were there writers, teachers or other artists that you looked to in finding a way to tell your story?

Yes, the influences from other artists, teachers and writers are numerous. It would take me hours to list them all! So maybe I should start at the very beginning.

My parents were my first influences in terms of reading and writing stories. They were British and made sure my brother and I were exposed to classic children’s stories at home. They taught us to read at a very young age and so I read books that were advanced for my age. I remember I was really little when I read The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde. I was a sensitive child and bawled my eyes out when the giant died in the story, but at the same time I noticed how pain and beauty in writing seemed to be so tied together.

That lesson never left me, and as hard as it was to relive and tell my story, I made sure that I stopped to experience and draw beautiful things too — a sandy beach in summer on a windy day, a horseback ride in the forest, a singing bird, fallen maple leaves on the forest floor, footsteps in fallen snow. In a journey that ultimately ends up being solitary, moments of beauty have the power to help you transcend the misery around you.

Telling your own truth seems to give people the courage and the permission to tell theirs. Was this part of your motivation in writing the book? I know your book is only recently launched but have people reached out to you?

Yes, a couple of people have reached out. I fully expect more will as time goes on. Giving people the courage and permission to tell their story was definitely part of my motivation. When people realize they are not alone they become encouraged to reach out and tell their story and hopefully find the power to heal.

I feel that no form of abuse should be kept silent. Silence is the only power the abuser has. The abuser is not all powerful as I thought when it was happening to me.

At the time of the abuse, it felt like Richard was the most powerful person in the world. My parents couldn’t stop him, the police couldn’t stop him, nor could my friends, neighbours, teachers or anyone else. But now that I have told my whole story, Richard seems to me like a small, twisted person with something fundamentally wrong with him at his core. He has a sickness, something evil living inside him that once the light of the truth shines on it, it scurries around like a frightened spider looking for somewhere to hide.

If you could speak to your 15-year-old self now, what would you tell her?

This is a hard question to answer. I was in a rural location with no public transit, I was too young to drive, and this was a long time before the internet arrived. I was in a new community and only knew a handful of people. For a while we had no phone either. I had no knowledge of how to access protective services, or even if there were any options available to me. I suppose that is the main reason I want to give a portion of the proceeds of the book to Covenant House, which shelters homeless youth — to give them a place to go if where they are living is unbearable.

At the time I felt that if I told and I wasn’t believed, my life would get a lot worse. Worse in a way that would be unbearable, and I might have to kill myself. Who could I tell that would for sure believe me and help me? Even to this day I cannot answer that. I can’t say for sure if I told someone they would believe me and get me away from the situation.

So, I suppose I would tell my 15-year-old self: stay safe, stay alive, try to find somewhere safe to live as soon as you can, and once you leave home get counselling, get it as soon as you can and don’t stop going to counselling until you are sure you are healed. Really sure. Because otherwise you’ll just wake up decades later like me and realize, like I did, the toll on my life it took and understand only after it is too late, the things you suffered through and missed out on that you will now never have a chance to change.