Overview

Jeannie Vanasco has had the same nightmare since she was a teenager. It is always about him: one of her closest high school friends, a boy named Mark. A boy who raped her. When her nightmares worsen, Jeannie decides--after fourteen years of silence--to reach out to Mark. He agrees to talk on the record and meet in person. Jeannie details her friendship with Mark before and after the assault, asking the brave and urgent question: Is it possible for a good person to commit a terrible act? Jeannie interviews Mark, exploring how rape has impacted his life as well as her own. Unflinching and courageous, Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl is part memoir, part true crime record, and part testament to the strength of female friendships--a recounting and reckoning that will inspire us to ask harder questions, push towards deeper understanding, and continue a necessary and long overdue conversation.

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9781951142032

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Reviews

A gripping read and true fodder for the necessary reckoning with toxic masculinity. A literary feminist miracle.--Sophia Shalmiyev, author of Mother Winter A remarkably nuanced account of the complicated and confusing emotions that surface when your rapist is someone you knew and trusted. A rigorous and nuanced investigation.--Lisa Locascio, author of Open Me About how important it is to speak about these oft-silenced experiences that cause so many to feel ashamed, scared, and alone.--NPR About violence and forgiveness, about friendship and the unwanted title of victim, about digging deeper and deeper to seek answers. An essential, unforgettable work.--Erik Anderson, author of Flutter Point An extraordinarily brave work of self- and cultural reflection. Astonishingly fierce.--Emily Geminder, author of Dead Girls and Other Stories Bold, unsettling, and timely. . . . A reckoning with injustice.--Laurie Halse Anderson Brilliant.--Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life Cuts through the silence of deep betrayal.--Amy Jo Burns, author of Shiner Exactly the book we need right now. . . . I wish everyone in this country would read it.--Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me Explores the common experience of rape with uncommon nuance and intense tenderness.--YZ Chin, author of Though I Get Home Gorgeous, harrowing, heartbreaking.--Carmen Maria Machado Heartfelt, painful, and essential. Interrogates the terms of betrayal and the limits of redemption.--Tim Taranto, author of Ars Botanica Intrepid. . . . A work that has the potential to change the way we think and talk about rape and the people who commit it. Perhaps the most important book of the season. Sets the canon of #MeToo-era creative nonfiction on fire. . . . Inimitable. Striking. . . . Creates a language for something we don't talk about. Stunning.--Angela Pelster, author of Limber There is so much power in these pages.--Elissa Washuta, author of My Body is a Book of Rules Utterly brilliant. Vanasco immediately makes you wonder how we can take so much about sexual assault for granted. Vanasco is a formidable talent.--Daniel Gumbiner, author of The Boatbuilder Wickedly clever and powerful.--Krystal A. Sital, author of Secrets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad A cuttingly funny meta-meditation on her own pain in the context of #MeToo. Thought-provoking, unmooring, and haunting.

Vanasco immediately makes you wonder how we can take so much about sexual assault for granted, how we will accept lines about women asking for it and women's insistence that it only happened this one time. But the book has - and achieves - a higher ambition than being an astute study in sexual consent. A cuttingly funny meta-meditation on her own pain in the context of #MeToo. It's a remarkably nuanced account of the complicated and confusing emotions that surface when your rapist is someone you knew and trusted. It's about violence and forgiveness, about friendship and the unwanted title of victim, about digging deeper and deeper to seek answers -- from yourself and from your bogeyman.--Maya Salam Bold, unsettling, and timely . . . critically important.--Laurie Halse Anderson Singular, gutting ... perhaps the most important book of the season. It's hard to overstate the importance of this gorgeous, harrowing, heartbreaking book, which tackles sexual violence and its aftermath while also articulating the singular pain of knowing -- or loving, or caring for, or having a history with -- one's rapist. Vanasco is whip-smart and tender, open and ruthless; she is the perfect guide through the minefield of her trauma, and ours.--Carmen Maria Machado Jeannie Vanasco has written exactly the book we need right now. I wish everyone in this country would read it.--Melissa Febos, author of ABANDON ME Thought-provoking, unmooring, and haunting. Vanasco gets at so many of the gray areas in our conversations about rape and the rehabilitation of its perpetrators. If some traumas don't fit into neat little narratives, then the pleasure of reading Vanasco is in knowing that messiness is OK, that there's no right way to handle such betrayals.--Maris Kreizman Vanasco invites her readers to understand the complicated humanity involved in both causing and experiencing harm, leaving the limits and possibilities of accountability and healing as urgent, open questions. An extraordinarily brave work of self- and cultural reflection. (Starred Review) Vanasco's second memoir sets the canon of #MeToo-era creative nonfiction on fire: she interviews her rapist. ... This is a slow-burning, reverberating meditation on the nuances of morality, masculinity, and punishment. ... Inimitable. (Starred Review) Carrying memories of rape sometimes feels like working, day in and day out, on untangling a hopelessly knotted chain. In this book, Jeannie Vanasco works through the gnarl until its terrifying expanse is stretched out before us. There is so much power in these pages: in the vulnerability she shows in seeking answers, in the deftness with which she builds a narrative where there was once only a mess of questions and silence.--Elissa Washuta, author of STARVATION MODE Clearly this is an important and timely book. Even in a world that can seem brimming with stories similar to Vanasco's, hers stands out . . . heartfelt, painful, and essential. Vanasco is a brilliant craftsperson--blurring the lines between memoir, investigation, and interview, she confronts her years-ago rapist and dives headlong into the complexity of forgiveness and redemption, what was taken and what can be rebuilt. Our cultural discussion of rape is so deeply marked by silence. Enough with the silence. Enough. Vanasco has given us a bridge.--Megan Stielstra, author of THE WRONG WAY TO SAVE YOUR LIFE Vanasco performs a literary feminist miracle for all women who have been denied basic rights, been suspect, been labeled, been unbelievable after their rapes and assaults, and shines our collective shame outwardly, to ask a man why a choice to abuse is made.--Sophia Shalmiyev, author of MOTHER WINTER Jeannie Vanasco's rigorous and nuanced investigation of crime, trauma, secrets, and the telling of our stories, applies an agile mind and penetrating insight to the enforced silences that surround rape and its aftermath.--Lisa Locascio, author of OPEN ME Vanasco's wildly courageous decision to confront her rapist, question him, meet with him, and then invite her readers into her processing of that experience is, frankly, stunning. This is a book I'll teach and reread well into the future, grateful that fewer and fewer girls will grow up without the opportunity to talk about these things.--Angela Pelster, author of LIMBER Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl explores the common experience of rape with uncommon nuance and intense tenderness. In the process, the book also unexpectedly becomes a warm celebration of female friendship. Vanasco reveals the boundaries of your thoughts and feelings. Then she takes you beyond.--YZ Chin, author of THOUGH I GET HOME

A cuttingly funny meta-meditation on her own pain in the context of #MeToo.-- O, The Oprah Magazine A gripping read and true fodder for the necessary reckoning with toxic masculinity.-- BuzzFeed A remarkably nuanced account of the complicated and confusing emotions that surface when your rapist is someone you knew and trusted.-- The Cut A stunning work of meta nonfiction. . . . Vanasco's narrative pushes far past the flattened media narrative of Me Too and asks uncomfortable questions about how to talk about rape culture, toxic masculinity and gender, justice, and resilience.-- Shondaland About violence and forgiveness, about friendship and the unwanted title of victim, about digging deeper and deeper to seek answers.-- The New York Times Book Review An extraordinarily brave work of self- and cultural reflection.-- Kirkus, Starred Review Bold, unsettling, and timely. . . . A reckoning with injustice.--Laurie Halse Anderson TIME Gorgeous, harrowing, heartbreaking.--Carmen Maria Machado Bustle Heartfelt, painful, and essential.-- Shelf Awareness Intrepid. . . . A work that has the potential to change the way we think and talk about rape and the people who commit it.-- Bitch Perhaps the most important book of the season.-- Esquire Sets the canon of #MeToo-era creative nonfiction on fire. . . . Inimitable.-- Booklist, Starred Review Striking. . . . Creates a language for something we don't talk about.-- The Paris Review Thought-provoking, unmooring, and haunting.-- NYLON Utterly brilliant.-- Book Riot Vanasco immediately makes you wonder how we can take so much about sexual assault for granted.-- The Times Literary Supplement A literary feminist miracle.--Sophia Shalmiyev, author of Mother Winter A rigorous and nuanced investigation.--Lisa Locascio, author of Open Me About how important it is to speak about these oft-silenced experiences that cause so many to feel ashamed, scared, and alone.--NPR An essential, unforgettable work.--Erik Anderson, author of Flutter Point Astonishingly fierce.--Emily Geminder, author of Dead Girls and Other Stories Brilliant.--Megan Stielstra, author of The Wrong Way to Save Your Life Cuts through the silence of deep betrayal.--Amy Jo Burns, author of Shiner Exactly the book we need right now. . . . I wish everyone in this country would read it.--Melissa Febos, author of Abandon Me Explores the common experience of rape with uncommon nuance and intense tenderness.--YZ Chin, author of Though I Get Home Interrogates the terms of betrayal and the limits of redemption.--Tim Taranto, author of Ars Botanica Stunning.--Angela Pelster, author of Limber There is so much power in these pages.--Elissa Washuta, author of My Body is a Book of Rules Vanasco is a formidable talent.--Daniel Gumbiner, author of The Boatbuilder Wickedly clever and powerful.--Krystal A. Sital, author of Secrets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad

Author Information

Jeannie Vanasco is the author of the memoirs Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl and The Glass Eye. Born and raised in Sandusky, Ohio, she lives in Baltimore and is an associate professor of English at Towson University.

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