Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern, 320 pages.
from the back cover:
One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post traumatic stress disorder investigates her own unsolved sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and, in doing so, examines the horrors of trauma and denial.
"I have been quiet, and I have listened all my life. But now, I will finally speak."
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It was 1973, and Jessica Stern was fifteen, her sister fourteen, when they were attacked inside their home. The police effectively ignored any investigation and their father, who was on a business trip to Norway, stayed overseas after hearing what happened. It is no wonder then, that Stern handled the experience by dissociating. She lost the ability to fear where others would tremble and she all but forgot her past. Oddly enough, these symptoms contributed to her great success - becoming an expert at terrorism, going into war zones, interviewing violent men. When a police lieutenant from her hometown of Concord contacts her, having reopened the investigation, she decides it is time to confront what has been buried - find her rapist and at the same time shine a light on how she spent a lifetime coping with terror.
"Once I read the complete file, I had to learn about the man who raped me. I needed to do this to tame him - but also to tame a wild, nameless feeling inside myself." (p. 49)
This was a difficult read - both the subject matter and Stern's commitment to laying all things bare definitely caused this reader to some moments of discomfort. Her writing alternated between distant and intimate as she recounted her trauma, found other victims, interviewed people who knew her rapist, and investigated his past. For me, some of the hardest passages were the ones involving interviews with her father, a Holocaust survivor, and how his emotional detachment influenced her pain."But I am not going to let him off the hook. I can forgive him; I forgave him long ago. But I will no longer absorb the impact of his denial. And there is more: I want to relieve my father of a pain he insists he doesn't feel." (p.276)
The attitude of the police at the time of the incident is also bewildering and maddening. And I'm afraid speaks to how I'm sure thousands of cases were handled before sexual assault was taken seriously. Stern does not place blame even though my insides were screaming for justice. But it is her professional reserve mixed with her candor that make it possible to continue reading despite the emotional reactions this story incites.
Denial is not a book that can be recommended casually. It is a brave and unflinching look at the effects of trauma by someone who has experience, knowledge, and intelligence.Jessica Stern is a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on Security and Law. She is the author of Terror in the Name of God and The Ultimate Terrorists. Visit http://jessicasternbooks.com for more info.
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for the review copy.
The End.
