Dark Obsession: A True Story of Incest and Justice

The author, a victim of incest, recounts how she successfully took her father to court, despite the opposition of family and community members

When the author was 8 years old, her stepfather, Bobby, began to molest her; when she was 13, the molestation escalated into sexual intercourse. Bobby was a brilliant and charismatic man, a millionaire in a small central Texas town where the community regarded him as its chief benefactor. His wife seemed not to want to know what was going on in the household, although she was upset by the frequent screaming matches between her husband and her daughter. When the author finally told her story, Bobby attempted suicide, then plea-bargained a sentence of a few months at a private psychiatric hospital; his step-daughter was sent to a religion-oriented reform school for a year. On her release she brought a civil suit against Bobby and was awarded $10 million. Told with the aid of the author of The Yale Murder , this is the courageous story of a tenacious woman.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Sessions suffered years of sexual abuse by her stepfather, a Texas rancher-millionaire, portrayed as a manipulator obsessed with total control of her life. Shelly's mother, "fragile and malleable," failed to intervene. Using his connections, Mr. Sessions served just six months in a private hospital for the crime of incest--it was not until Shelly successfully sued him for $10 million that justice was done. Meyer, author of Death of Innocence ( LJ 2/1/85), relies heavily on direct quotation of Shelly and others in this gripping account. As revealing about the trauma of incest as Sylvia Fraser's My Father's House ( LJ 4/15/88) and Dena Kleiman's A Deadly Silence (Atlantic Monthly Pr., 1988), this is recommended for public libraries.
- Gregor A. Preston, Univ. of California Lib., Davis
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.