54 Time October 7, 2019
TimeOff Books
For all The lighT ThaT #meToo has shined
into dark corners, many among us still swallow
the destructive myth that most rapists are armed
strangers lurking in alleys. The past two years have
seen countless powerful examples of the truth:
rapists are usually someone the victim knows,
often quite well. But the stranger- danger emphasis
that remains creates a shield, allowing perpetrators
to avoid seeing themselves as doing real harm.
Jeannie Vanasco, an English professor and a
survivor, wanted to delve into the motivations and
behavior of rapists. In her new memoir, Things We
Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, she asks a
question central to our national conversation about
abuse: “Is it possible to be a good person who com-
mits a terrible act?” Vanasco’s 2017 debut memoir,
The Glass Eye, explored grief and mental illness.
Her father died when she was in her first year of
college, a devastating blow that was compounded
by several traumatic incidents.
Things We Didn’t Talk About zeroes in on one:
being raped by a close friend when she was 19
years old. More than a decade after the attack,
Vanasco decided to look for her rapist and see if
he would speak to her about what happened. The
idea of such a confrontation is bold, unsettling and
timely. She wanted to find out how a person who
hurts others talks to himself about his actions. If
we are ever going to reduce sexual violence, it’s a
critically important question.
vanasco begins The book with meandering
discussions of memory and writing as she de-
scribes her search for the man she hasn’t spoken
to in 14 years. But the tension accelerates and the
structure tightens when she finds “Mark,” and he
agrees to several recorded conversations. The au-
thor intersperses transcripts of those conversa-
tions with her analysis of them—a close read of
shame, heartbreak and anger. “I’m tired of white,
educated, middle-class guys, like Mark, not being
held accountable,” Vanasco writes. At the same
time, she retraces the patterns of self-doubt so
many survivors battle. “Does my silence make me
complicit? I think it does. Or maybe I’m finding
another way to blame myself.”
At times, Vanasco downplays her pain and the
depth of her trauma to Mark, aware of yet unable
to correct what she calls “gender performing.”
Those moments can make for frustrating reading.
But they provide a vital examination of a kind of
reflexive niceness, familiar to many women, which
can create a feeling of safety by deflecting conflict,
while also inhibiting accountability and growth.
Vanasco opens her process of self- examination
to the reader. Along with questioning Mark, she
explores her own responses, first to the attack,
then to the interviews. She unpacks her struggle to
describe what happened as rape and how the FBI’s
definition, updated in 2013 to be more nuanced,
helped her accept the crime for what it was.
Mark’s own process is murkier: while he admits
in the book that he raped Vanasco, he struggles
to see himself as a rapist. His apologies alternate
between sincerity and infuriating self- interest.
His comment—“Nice guys are a total lie”—took
my breath away. There are honorable men in the
world; his own failure doesn’t apply to all. But
Vanasco writes with a fair hand. Mark’s depression
and solitude add a reluctant pathos to the book.
What Vanasco’s memoir lacks in research-
oriented context, it makes up for in honesty. She
has created a reckoning with injustice told in real
time, with all the hesitations and concerns of a
wounded heart. She provides few answers but com-
pels readers to ask as we all move forward: How
many abusers would act if they knew they’d be
called to account, not only legally, but also morally?Anderson is the author, most recently, of the poetry
memoir Shout, long-listed for the 2019 National
Book AwardMEMOIR
Speaking truth
to trauma
By Laurie Halse Anderson
△
Vanasco’s memoir
features verbatim
transcripts of her
conversations with
her attacker