When Jeff Comes Home
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When Jeff Comes Home, is a 1999 novel by Catherine Atkins, written for young adults.
Jeff, a thirteen-year-old boy and promising athlete was kidnapped from a roadside rest stop by a man named Ray, and has spent the past two and a half years locked in a dark basement. He was physically and sexually abused and forced to have sex with Ray if he wanted to eat.
Now aged sixteen, and too old for the paedophile, Jeff has been released and returned home. Jeff narrates the story of his abuse and recovery and is affected by the shame of not having hated the sex. Consumed with self-loathing and feeling unclean, Jeff refuses to cooperate with investigators and name his abductor.
Ray begins to stalk Jeff’s family. Ray leaves the clothes in which Jeff was kidnapped on Jeff's front steps and talks to his father in public and Jeff still cannot bring himself to identify him. Ray is, however, eventually caught, and Jeff gradually comes out of denial and talks about what has happened to him, finally releasing his anger and starting on the road to recovery.
