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This book is not primarily about clinical work, although some psychoanalytical ideas become central to the argument. It is a much more general discussion of the theme in relation to social attitudes toward the phenomenon of incest. I confess I struggled somewhat to apprehend the ‘new perspective’ and how it may differ from established views, but it seems ultimately that the author is arguing for more understanding of the context and meaning of a given act of child abuse than the condemnation which traditionally is applied in the form of legal and social prohibition.
The book consists for the most part of essays each focussing on a particular literary or cinematic depiction of incestuous relationships. However the author sets the scene with a series of autobiographical sketches (which do not include any experience of incest as such). Interspersed also are discussions of ideas from such psychoanalytical writers as Ian Suttie, Sandor Ferenczi, and the more contemporary Valerie Sinason and Estela Well-don. There is also a discussion of the case of James Porter who sexually abused many children in his years as a Catholic priest in the USA.
It is sometimes difficult to know quite how these chapters connect with each other. The autobiographical material leads on to an acknowledgement that in Western Society there is a ‘taboo on tenderness’, in Suttie's phrase. Inhibitions in the expression of affection in attachment relationships may be due to a fear of incestuous impulses. These constraints, leading to isolation and loneliness, are contrasted by the author with the intensity of emotional experience in relatively benign examples of incest. Examples are given in the films Murmur of the Heart, by Louis Malle, and Art for Teachers of Children, by Jennifer Montgomery. In these accounts social convention is thrown over in favour of freedom of expression. However more destructive instances of incest, such as that in the story of Sappho Durrell's suicidal hatred of the father again