This article discusses sexual violence and may be triggering for some readers. The Kingston Sexual Assault Centre’s 24-hour crisis and phone line can be reached at 613-544-6424 / 1-800-544-6424. For on campus , community may email [email protected].
Catherine Hernandez’s novel, Behind You, shifts the focus of true crime away from the perpetrator, telling a story of resilience that reveals the grave implications of rape culture.
Published in 2024 by HarperCollins, Behind You draws inspiration from the period in the 1980s and 1990s when Ontario was plagued by a serial killer. While the characters and the killer in the book are fictional, the setting and themes resonate with real historical events.
Hernandez, a queer woman of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian heritage, served as the Queen’s Writer in Residence in 2018. The residence program, founded in 2006 by Carolyn Smart, lasts for one term each academic year, during which writers engage with the literary community through events, as well as take on a mentorship role for creative writing students at Queen’s.
The novel follows the story of Alma, a Filipina woman, and shifts between her present-day adult life and her childhood in the 1980s. As a young girl, she witnesses the terror created by ‘the “Scarborough Stalker,” while her older self grapples with her complicity in addressing sexual violence, particularly regarding the behaviour of her teenage son.
“I wanted to write a book in which it was about the impact of sexual harm on people, on generations of people, and how the main character really realizes that it’s time to look at herself and the way that she’s parenting her son,” Hernandez said in an interview with The Journal.
Though fictional, the novel is inspired by true events Hernandez herself experienced growing up in Scarborough during the period plagued by a man known as the Scarborough Rapist.
Hernandez emphasizes the novel’s focus on the survivors and the community rather than the perpetrator. “We believe that when we lock up the perpetrator, that it gets rid of the problem, when in actual fact, we as a society allow history to repeat itself again and again because of the ways that we uphold rape culture,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez consciously avoids naming the killer in the novel, directing attention instead to the impact on those affected.
The novel also questions the responsibility put on women and girls to protect themselves, rather than on perpetrators not to cause harm. “The onus was on us to keep ourselves safe. We were failed by the police. We were failed by the patriarchy,” Hernandez said.
Of late, true crime has become immensely popular as a genre, with content featured on streaming platforms in the form of documentaries and dramatizations, podcasts, YouTube videos, and TikToks.
Hernandez is aware of this macabre public fascination with perpetrators and is doubtful of its effectiveness in preventing crimes. Rather, she suggests a self-reflective approach that calls into question society’s complicity is a better solution.
Hernandez hopes her novel will resonate not only with those who this period of Canadian history but many more.
“I’m really hoping that people read this and look at themselves with a nice honest eye.”
Tags
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].