Pisaries Creator

Publisher: Sourcebooks

Publication Date: March 18, 2025 (originally written in French in 2022)

Number of Pages: 224

When I picked up this book at Barnes and Noble, I was more than ready to dive into it. This kind of book was appalling to read, but unfortunately, I was not totally surprised Caroline Darian’s father did this to his immediate and extended family. His sexual depravity isn’t the outlier because there are countless acts of evil done by fathers, brothers, husbands, and friends across the globe. This doesn’t mean women can’t target a victim family member, pull the arrows back, and plunge them into another body one by one. While I know about the date rape drug used in universities and colleges and occasional stories I’ve heard about where husbands drug their wives and secretly videotape them sleeping or perform sexual acts while unconscious, the case of Dominique Pelicot takes on a whole new level of disgusting and terrify. Pelicot was convicted for 20 years in prison for drugging and raping his wife, drugging his daughter, and other females in their extended family as well as preying and offending on non-family members.

Pelicot is a classic narcissist and still to this day is bending the truth to his favor and worse he has succeeded in continued brainwashing of his wife Gisèle. Because of his mental hold on her, or as I call them hooks, Caroline is estranged from her mother. I see this as a form of independence, courage, and healing because we are only responsible for our own lives. Sometimes, even if it is really difficult, we have to be willing to cut the cords and break the familial ties that no longer serve us. Unfortunately, a predator such as Dominique Pelicot repeatedly attempts to get others to feel sorry for him, get others to do his dirty work now that he’s in jail/prison, and most of all to do everything he can to maintain his mental status quo. He fools himself into believing he still has the power and cunning when he clearly does not.

Caroline writes her story in a journal type format with each new day discovering more horrifying facts about what her father did to her family. Caroline includes all the emotions from good to bad regarding her father and mother. She includes past family vacations and memories that make a little more sense to her. When her father was arrested by the police in September 2020, Dominique invited many men to rape his wife and filmed them during their sexual assaults. At least 72 men offended on Caroline’s mother, Gisèle, that started in July of 2011 about 50 of them were identified. As you can read, this isn’t a book for everyone. If you find this kind of behavior vile and disturbing, there is no other way to see it.

The main purpose of this book according to Caroline is to shed light on the occurrence of sexual assault and chemical submission in France, let alone the rest of the world. Not everyone grows up in a loving family. Not everyone grows up in a terrible family. Living in a family you once thought was “normal” but turned out was anything but normal is more than a gut punch or kick to the head. The physical pain might subside, but the emotional pain is beyond powerful. I give Caroline all the admiration for speaking the painful truth about her family and not owning the guilt and shame and lies of what her father did to destroy and damage her psyche. I hope to do the same one day and to feel more at ease regarding my own story.