Dennis Drenner
If you want to read something that adds to the #metoo conversation but doesn’t provide any easy answers, pick up a copy of Jeannie Vanasco’s new memoir, Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl.
Trigger warning: The book contains graphic descriptions, and it is likely to stir up feelings and memories, especially if you are part of these dispiriting statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: One in three women and one in four men have experienced sexual violence in their lives. One in five women and one in 38 men have experienced rape.
Vanasco’s story is, in some ways, sadly similar.to many others: A friend from her home town raped her when they were both back from college.
Until she contacted “Mark” (a pseudonym) for this book, Vanasco only talked to him once after the assault. She forgave him (or so she thought), and told him to read J.D. Salinger’s Frannie and Zoey. In her soul-searching book, she revisits the assault, and her weird response. She also looks deep into her own soul and finds a nest of self-criticism. She cares too much about pleasing men. Her book will upset feminists. She feels ashamed. In addition to revisiting the rape, she relives all the good times she spent with Mark.
The brave and beautiful book is an interrogation, of self, of memory, and of Mark. Vanasco is a deep thinker, and a relentless questioner, who uses the incident with Mark to explore other sexual violence in her life and in the lives of her students. She is a college writing professor, and many young women in her class share stories of abuse.
But even with victims’ stories filling the airwaves, Vanasco enters unfamiliar territory when she talks about the rape with Mark, who agrees to a series of phone conversations, which she recorded, and two face-to-face meetings.
“I want to hate him, but I can’t,” writes Vanasco. After devouring the book, I know how she feels. Mark comes off as honest, deferential and ashamed of his actions, as he should be. His life has been lonely and sad, and he destroyed one of the closest friendships he’d ever had. Vanasco beats herself up as she listens to the transcripts, noting the places where she soothes and encourages him. It’s not a comfortable place for her, or for the reader, but it rings true.
Vanasco’s brave book will likely be criticized by people who will say it’s not her job to provide a voice to the perpetrators. But Vanasco does not apologize for Mark’s despicable behavior. What she is doing is exploring the twisted psychology of rape with an admitted rapist — her rapist. It is not a rare perspective. If we want to understand and stop rape, we all need to figure this out.
Jeannie Vanasco will read at Johnson Public House on Oct. 20 at 7 p.m. Space is limited. RSVP to 702wi.com to attend.
