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“You will find society asking you for the happy ending, saying come back when you’re better, when what you say can make us feel good, when you have something more uplifting, affirming. The ugliness was something I never asked for, it was dropped on me, and for a long time I worried it made me ugly too… But when I write the ugly and painful parts into a statement, an incredible thing happened. The world did not plug up its ears, it opened itself to me.”
Prior to the publication of Chanel Miller’s debut memoir, all the American public knew of her was her trauma. Not her name, her cultural background, her interests, her talents, or her voice. But we had intimate knowledge of the worst evening of her life, we held in our minds the image of a young unconscious woman being violated behind a dumpster. This memoir is not a tell-all, or an origin story, but a complicated portrait of a survivor’s truth, infused with an inherently political indictment of the American legal system and its treatment of survivors of sexual trauma.
For anyone among the millions who read Chanel Miller’s victim impact statement, published by Buzzfeed in 2016, it is no surprise that Miller is a staggering literary talent, who writes with clarity and precision, inviting readers into the most private corners of her life in the months after the attack. The true strength of this memoir is its refusal to slip into the easy language of blind rage, which comes from its author’s ability to create a through line between her attack and her interest in visual arts and writing. None of this is to say that Miller’s art or voice emerged organically from the trauma, as she explains, “I did not come into existence when he harmed me. She found her voice! I had a voice, he stripped it, left me groping around blind for a bit, but I always had it. I just used it like I never had to use it before.” The art did not originate from the grief, but they are not separate, which is a duality that represents a crucial thread in the book. Miller asserts that it is possible to be both a scholarship swimmer and a rapist, a simple observation that digs at the roots of why society’s insistence that good and bad cannot coexist oversimplifies the conversation surrounding sexual assault. This memoir in many ways battles oversimplification, replacing the emptiness of Miller’s victimhood with her rich personal life and relationships. She affords her attacker and the many complicit individuals in the mishandling of his sentencing a courtesy that they never extended to her: a recognition of their complexity and humanity. Instead of accepting Brock’s version of the events, she fills in the gaps of the narrative with a nuanced examination of the social conditions that have created toxic rape culture, including privilege, misogyny, and greed, and how individuals operate within these conditions.
Miller contextualizes her attack within the cultural moments that followed it, making distinct connections with the #MeToo movement, the election of Donald Trump, and the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. She voices the frustration of many of us who feel angry when the abuses of power by privileged men are excused time and time again, always at the expense of those whom they’ve preyed upon. Rape is about power and control, and thus it is always political. Miller’s attack and Stanford’s (lack of) response to it speak to the power of capitalism and privilege and the way they influence a person or institution’s moral fortitude. Miller takes on the voice of a community organizer, pleading with her readers, “Question who your realities are being written by. Reexamine who dictates it.” This memoir is a vital contribution to the political discourse surrounding truth and its authorship, and examines the nuanced ways that the voices of the oppressed have historically been excluded by those in positions of power. The book is about truth and the importance of engaging with it, and the power of not only believing survivors, but amplifying their voices.
As much as I wish this book didn’t have to exist, it does. Miller has transformed her assault from a single traumatic moment in time into a larger cultural moment that gives voice to the voiceless. Unfortunately, there is so much in this book that will be recognizable to a great number of readers, such as Miller’s palpable anger at the cat caller’s she meets on the street, the neglecting of her own physical body after the attack, and the difficulty she has protecting her loved ones from her agony. For female readers, Miller’s struggle to claim her body as her own property and no one else’s, will absolutely strike a chord. But so will Miller’s incredible relationship with her sister Tiffany, her lawyer, her councilors, and her nurses, all of whom are testaments to the staggering importance of female support and community. Miller also identifies the two Swedish men who witnessed her attack and tackled Turner to the ground as he fled the scene, encouraging readers to “be the Swedes”, to believe rape victims and protect them at all costs. Throughout the memoir, there is strong recognition that there are heroes in this story, and a hope that they will always be there to help in our most vulnerable moments. Miller recognizes how trauma compounds upon itself when the victim is isolated, separated from their community and loved ones. In the final paragraph of her victim impact statement, she writes, “And finally, to girls everywhere, I am with you. On nights when you feel alone, I am with you. When people doubt you or dismiss you, I am with you… I believe you.” I believe her.
Like its author, this novel is courageous in its tenderness. Miller writes, “I survived because I remained soft, because I listened, because I wrote. Because I huddled close to my truth, protected it like a tiny flame in a terrible storm… Do not become the ones that hurt you. Stay tender with your power. Never fight to injure, fight to uplift.” What strikes me most about Miller is her ability to transcend her circumstances, and in turn examine them with incisive wit and clarity. She treats her narrative with such care and attention, that the experience of reading it feels like spending a great deal of time with one’s closest friend. This is not to say the story is comfortable, I was in tears on at least ten occasions before completing the book, but Miller’s voice is so self-assured and inviting that it feels like a privilege to spend time in her world. This book is required reading. It tackles such topics as the duality of man, the harsh injustices of the American legal system, and the very nature of truth, all the while remaining an intimate and richly developed personal narrative. This memoir is the definition of combatting darkness with light, and its ability to capture nuance and duality is awe-inspiring. I will leave you with Miller’s mother’s advice, “It is not a question of if you survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do…Good and bad things come from the universe holding hands. Wait for the good to come.”