Tiger, Tiger is a well-crafted memoir that recounts the 15 years of Margaux Fragoso’s young life that were spent with Peter Curran. When Fragoso’s Margaux meets Peter at the local pool in a district of New Jersey, she is seven. He is 51. What follows is a disturbing insight into the manipulative behaviours of a pedophile, from the perspective of the victim. It covers not only the prolonged sexual abuse she suffered at his hands, but the circumstances that allowed it to go on.

To describe this as an uncomfortable read is a huge understatement. Tiger, Tiger begins with a prologue explaining Margaux and Peter’s relationship – so from the beginning, the reader has no doubt what this story is about. Despite the circumstances, and the inevitable damage that Peter caused after all those years of abuse, Fragoso is able to capture Peter’s complexities, with a level of maturity and a degree of emotional distance that is astounding. The awful fact is that she loved him. However, bearing witness to Peter’s predatory nature and Margaux’s vulnerabilities is extremely difficult and at times sickening. And although there are valid reasons for telling this story, I wondered, as I read on to find out what happened next, whether at any point it became a voyeuristic exercise. Fragoso hopes to expose the dangerous but charismatic nature of pedophiles, so that what happened to her can be avoided in the future. I hope that her story can make a difference.

Virginia Millen is an editor and freelance reviewer.