This book review has been written by Anonywrites, a non-offending partner. You can find her blog here: blog and her Twitter page here: Twitter.
I had a conversation recently with one of my teens who doesn’t like reading and found myself delivering an impassioned argument for why we read; we understand ourselves through understanding others; we learn more about the human condition; we learn the things that we are, the things that we are not; we get to belong to other worlds, to escape our own problems and understand more about one another. Who knows whether it had the desired effect in encouraging my teen to read, but it made me feel like I had done some parenting on the matter, and hopefully it will make them at least consider it.
Something we may look for in books are experiences that match our own. Experiences that affirm ours, represetations of circumstances we can relate to.
Sadly, when it comes to the ‘The Knock’, there is an absence of representation. Many people who experience the fallout are silenced by shame. They fear talking about what has happened, that people won’t be sympathetic. That their stories will be minimised. That they will be told that they don’t have the right to talk about it, being reminded that they are not the primary victims. The family members and children are victims. though. In a different way; of state, community and media response (and lack of response) to their support needs. They are modern-day lepers, discriminated against by association and thrown into the lion’s den.
The refusal for recognition of families affected in the fallout of the knock by the government doesn’t help. They would prefer to look the other way and pretend it’s not happening, than to acknowledge and mitigate against the realities of what children and families are facing.
It is important for marginalised groups to have representation in literature. It allows for their voice to be amplified, for the issues that they face to be better understood.
I first connected with Michael Sheath in 2021, having embarked upon the final year of a Creative Writing MA. I had previously had to suspend studying after my husband received ‘The Knock’. Having resumed study, two years later (writing a novel about The Knock across my final year assignments) I was desperately searching for fiction (‘Knock Lit’?) about this event (and the fallout from it) and had almost drawn a blank. Even the university librarians were flummoxed. I had read Eating the Elephant, by Alice Wells, which was relatable insofar as it evoked some of the overwhelming emotions present following the revelation of sexual offending. But what about when the offending is online? There was nothing. So, I did as all good students do, and took to Twitter, posting a status calling for help in locating such literature.
Michael answered my call for assistance and very generously shared some of the monologues that form Crossing the Line. I was thus afforded the opportunity to refer to, and gain inspiration from Michael’s work. At the same time Michael was writing The Daughter, I was writing an assignment from the perspective of a child, drawing on wider literature (such as The Earth Hums in B Flat, To Kill a Mickingbird and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, all written from a child’s perpective) to accurately represent the child’s voice. Children of The Knock had no visible representation in literature. Michael kindly shared the monologue of The Daughter with me, hence I was able to reference a contemporary, relevant piece of work.
The foreword is by Sarah Burrows, from Children Heard and Seen, a charity very close to my heart as they have supported and continue to support my children and I to get back on our feet following the imprisonment of my children’s father. In the absence of any government support, this charity work to mitigate the impact of parental imprisonment. They receive a sum total of zero funding from the MoJ, or indeed any other government department. All profits from sales of Crossing the Line go to Children Heard and Seen.
Michael introduces the book with his own background story. Twenty-five years of experience working in the area of sexual offending. He talks of the evolution of the kind of offenders he is seeing, compared to in the past, and how technology has widened the scope of (and opportunites for) child sexual abuse.
Interestingly, he also discusses a topic which until recently, hasn’t been addressed in mainstream media; the perils of the pornography industry, and how the internet has enabled the violent, incest-themed, underage, exploitative, non-consensual material to proliferate, and to infiltrate the mainstream, creating deviant pathways. Thankfully, the conversation is now widening, and the acknowledgement of the harms caused by this industry and by Big Tech in the name of profits are being recognised.
The monologues are a series of characters, whose lives are all touched by The Knock, in different ways. Some of their stories are interconnected, which ties the work together, as well as highlighting the differences in perspectives of the various characters: The Wife, The Daughter, The Mother, The Downloader, The Detective.
Each character is presented with accompanying notes, to help the reader to understand the context of the evolution of the work, and the background of the creation of the characters. Michael addresses a topic close to my heart, the lack of welfare consideration for the children impacted by a knock at the door for a parent, following the parent’s online sexual offending.
It was whilst my children were in the midst of the fallout of the knock that I noticed exactly the issues he articulates so well. That their support needs were neither acknowledged, met, nor understood by the state. It was a source of great frustration to me, having worked with traumatised young people in my role as a college lecturer, and seen the consequences of unaddressed trauma. Michael refers to the ACEs score, and that a score of 6 is concerning. Children of The Knock encounter around 7 ACEs and yet no tailored support is provided to them by the state. Social Care confirmed that because my children had not been sexually harmed they would not find support.
Certainly my own children endured several traumatic experiences; a sudden and dramatic change to the normaily of their lives following The Knock, fleeing their home and leaving friends behind, the loss of family members who turned away, having to change thier names to keep safe, fear of vigilantes and the fallout of their father being in the media, social, emotional and psychological disturbance, parental separation, a traumatised mother, parental imprisonment, the presence of seven social workers in their lives, in a system designed to scrutinise rather than support… the list goes on. I have been working to raise awareness of the plight of The Children of The Knock ever since.
My hope is that people will read Michael’s work and understand the far-reaching long-term consequences for children and family members and consider what must be done to mitigate the devastating impacts. Those impacts extend to professionals too, who are offered no psychological support in dealing with these cases. Agencies often have little training on this and are just as in the dark as families are about how to proceed. It is clear that there are no winners in this game. Everyone touched by this crime is impacted. From the absolute devastation to the primary victims, to the carnage and destruction on all others. This crime tears lives apart, divides families, and turns communities upside down.
Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light. —Vera Nazarian