In reading your comments and reviews through the almost 2 months journey of this novel, I have sensed a lot of queries about the realities of Anna's situation.
The truth is her situation is all too common. Any woman can become a victim of such violence. It is not confined to particular levels of education or wealth. Women who have low education levels can be victims as much as someone as educated as Anna. Wealth or being in financially difficult circumstances does not matter nor does a persons ethnic background.
According to the White Ribbon Organisation (a not for profit NGO aimed towards preventing violence by men against women, and for those interested their website is www.whiteribbon.org.au) in Australia, where Anna and Lu Jinhu's relationship occurred, domestic violence includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, social isolation, financial abuse, sexual abuse. The aim of such abuse is to control and dominate the person, and causes physical or psychological harm.
It is, as you can see not as simple as the physical harm. It is quite insidious in its nature. The background story of Annu and Lu Jinhu's relationship, and his actions are therefore grounded in reality.
The real world statistics are terrifying to think about. In Australia, which is a country that takes the issue seriously, as the White Ribbon Organisation indicates on its website on average 1 woman a week is killed by their partner or ex-partner. 1 in 4 women from the age of 15 experience emotional abuse by a partner or ex-partner; 1 woman in 5 is the victim of sexual abuse since the age of 15; 1 woman in 6 from the age of 15 is stalked; 40% of women separated from partners can continue to experience violence. This does not account for the impacts on children, the economic cost of such violence, family pressures about relationships and a mirad of other things.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (a government agency) through Surveys has determined that about 85% of domestic violence regardless of if the victim is male or female remains unreported to the police.
Such violence was brought into the spotlight in 2015 when Rosie Batty was awarded the title of Australian of the year. She became a campaigner against Domestic Violence when her Ex husband murdered their 11 year old son in at cricket practice. She started campaigning for women and children victims of such violence and legal system failures, which resulted in a royal commission (a special type of inquiry that takes evidence under oath from people and ends up making recommendations to the government that established it to try and improve things) in her home state of Victoria.
A father murdering his child or children is not a rare thing. Robert Farquharson in 2005 on Fathers day murdered his three sons near Geelong, Victoria by driving them into a dam, and drowning them. Another example (and I cannot find the name) was where a father on the first day of school pulled his car up on the West Gate bridge in Melbourne and threw his daughter off.
I will add more to this when I have time, but I knew you did not want a academic essay on the topic.
And before anyone asks, I am one of the lucky women, I have not been a victim of such abuse nor was I exposed to it as a child. I have worked in the legal system in Australia for 17 years in various roles (and have a law degree) and have worked with victims of such violence on a regular basis.
Given this background, I know victims often have to recount their story time and time again if they do report it. The only difference to the reality for those who report such violence is that in this novel I have repeated the story of Lu Jinhu's actions in different ways (as doing it in the same way throughout would be too boring).
If two thing come from this fictional work, firstly I hope I can inspire people to think about such actions, and for men to take the pledge as White Ribbon call it to end violence against women and children and for women to encourage the men in their life to do it.
Secondly and most importantly I hope any victims of such violence realise that there is hope.
Love, your author.