When a nine-year-old boy in a well-respected middle class family is raped, then repeatedly molested by his father, how does the boy experience the abuse and how does he manage to survive? Illuminating the horrors of child sexual abuse from a child’s perspective, Preludes examines these questions.
The boy wakes in the middle of the night to find his father sitting on the edge of his bed, gently shaking him from his sleep. Though confused by his father's unexpected presence, for a few brief moments he suspects nothing unusual. His father then accuses him of having misbehaved without saying how, and tells him he'll have to be punished. The boy initially protests, but then, sensing the futility of resistance, grudgingly prepares himself for what his father tells him will be a spanking, all the while thinking, "Gee, this is ridiculous – I haven't done anything wrong."
His father then proceeds to rape him, and, the rape completed, threatens to kill him if he tells anyone, including his mother. Thus begins the boy's struggle for survival in the face of his father's nightly onslaughts – a struggle that stretches the boy's physical, psychological, and emotional resources to their limits and beyond.
Preludes is informed by the author's experiences as a child sexual abuse survivor.
