After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back
by Nancy Venable Raine
List Price:
Our Price: $6.90
You Save: $9.10 (57%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.49 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Nancy Venable RaineEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1999-08-03
ISBN: 0609804197
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Book Reviews of After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back
Book Review: Considering whether or not to hide
Summary: 4 Stars
"Throw away the lights, the definitions
And say of what you see in the dark" - Wallace Stevens
"Speech is civilization itself. The word . . . preserves contact - it is silence which isolates." - Thomas Mann
Following her rape, this author became a completely different person, a person who lived "with sudden fear the way others live with cancer. The fear was always there." It took seven years before she could begin writing about her experience. She states that the anniversary of her rape "was more significant than my own birthday, and yet there was only silence . . . I had become, the one who marked her anniversaries in silence . . . Could I celebrate my survival in silence and alone? Not according to Webster's, which defines the verb "to celebrate" this way: "to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites" . . . It pained my family and friends to remember. To acknowledge my experience might bring up what they hoped I had forgotten . . . for me to remind them that I had not forgotten seemed unkind, even cruel, because I knew they needed to believe I had. Our rite was, therefore, silence."
"I thought about Wittgenstein's observation that the limits of language are the limits of reality. Was rape off limits to our most distinctly human attribute - language? . . . I could no longer consent to silence."
Another friend and rape victim asked her, "How do I tell people who don't know, people who might become close friends? If I don't tell them, it makes it a secret, like something to be ashamed of. When I do tell them, they make it worse. They never ask me about it. It'a a part of me, part of who I am now, but they don't want to know about it. It's no-win. Just no-win."
"But silence has the rusty taste of shame. The words 'shut up' are the most terrible words I know. I cannot hear them without feeling cold to the bone. The man who raped me spat those words out over and over during the hours of my attack - when I screamed when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing, when I protested . . . The real shame, as I have learned, is to consent to them."
So she wrote an essay "Returns of the Day" in The New York Times Magazine in 1994. In response "Without exception, all of the letters from survivors described the isolation of the aftermath of rape, its life-altering transfromations."
"The victims of rape must carry their memories with them for the rest of their lives. They must not also carry the burden of silence and shame."
If you have friend or family member dealing with these issues (and the odds are that you do), here are other books that are also excellent on this and related topics, "Lucky" & "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold, & "Siolence" edited by Susan McMaster - all written by women. Rape victims and victims of relationship violence and abuse often hide their experiences and the behaviors of their abusers, feeling ashamed for even being involved with the abusive patterns. All of these books suggest women become more free and mentally at ease when they realize there is nothing to be ashamed of about being victimized. And they suggest the causes of our silences and the things we hide probably deserve more attention, new perspectives, and reconsideration.
Summary of After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back
"Silence has the rusty taste of shame. The words shut up are the most terrible words I know. . . . The man who raped me spat these words out over and over during the hours of my attack--when I screamed, when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing, when I protested. It seemed to me that for seven years--until at last I spoke--these words had sunk into my soul and become prophecy. And it seems to me now that these words, the brutish message of tyrants, preserve the darkness that still covers this pervasive crime. The real shame, as I have learned, is to consent to them."After Silence is Nancy Venable Raine's eloquent, profoundly moving response to her rapist's command to "shut up," a command that is so often echoed by society and internalized by rape victims. Beginning with her assault by a stranger in her home in 1985, Raine's riveting narrative of the ten-year aftermath of her rape brings to light the truth that survivors of traumatic experiences know--a trauma does not end when you find yourself alive.
Just as devastating as the rape itself was the silence that shrouded it, a silence born of her own feelings of shame as well as the incomprehension of others. Raine gives shape, form, and voice to the "unspeakable" and exposes the misconceptions and cruelties that surround this prevalent though hidden crime. With formidable power and in intimate detail, she probes the long-term psychological and physiological aftereffects of rape, its tangled sexual confusions, the treatment of rape by the media and the legal and medical professions, and contemporary cultural views of victimhood.
For anyone, female or male, who has suffered from or witnessed the shattering effects of rape, After Silence inspires and points the way to healing. This landmark book is a stunning literary achievement that is a testimony to the power of language to transform the worst sort of violation and suffering into meaning and into art.
"The words shut up are the most terrible words I know," writes Nancy Venable Raine. "The man who raped me spat these words out over and over during the hours of my attack--when I screamed, when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing, when I protested." It took Raine seven years before she could start to remove the chains those words had wrapped around her spirit by writing about how the anonymous assailant had transformed her forever. "I have noted what has come into my view as I go about my life," she says, "seeing the world through the eyes of a woman who remembers rape." Raine brings a poet's attention to language and imagery to her account, infusing After Silence with powerful immediacy. The reader is made to understand why an event as seemingly innocuous as a landlord asking for a spare set of keys to one's apartment can strike dread into one's heart. As Raine takes us through her personal journey of recovery, she also explores the shifting cultural consciousness toward rape, from the acknowledgement of posttraumatic stress suffered by rape victims to the portrayal of rape in movies. It's this willingness to interrogate the world around her, combined with an emotional honesty that portrays intimate drama without resorting to sensationalism, that makes After Silence one of the most important memoirs of the 1990s. --Ron Hogan
Criminals Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Criminals Books
Raging Bull: My Storyby Jake La Motta, Joseph Carter, Peter Savage
Da Capo Press; Published: 1997-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.61
Price in other shops:
Conversations with the Capeman: The Untold Story of Salvador Agronby Richard Jacoby, Hubert Selby Jr.
University of Wisconsin Press; Published: 2004-07-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.30
Price in other shops:
Profiles from Prison: Adjusting to Life Behind Bars (Criminal Justice, Delinquency, and Corrections)by Michael G. Santos
Praeger; Published: 2003-06-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.95
The Woman Who Murdered Babies for Money: The Story of Amelia Dyerby Alison Rattle, Allison Vale
Andre Deutsch; Published: 2011-03-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.13
Price in other shops:
Counterterrorism Calendar 2009US Independent Agencies and Commissions; Published: 2009-01-23; Spiral-bound; Book
Best price: $54.75
The Wolf of Wall Streetby Jordan Belfort
Bantam; Published: 2007-09-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $7.81
Price in other shops:
Oswald's Tale: An American Mysteryby Norman Mailer
Random House Trade Paperbacks; Published: 2007-01-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.60
Price in other shops:
Dillinger: The Untold Story, Anniversary Editionby G. Russell Girardin, William J. Helmer
Indiana University Press; Published: 2009-07-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.71
Price in other shops:
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegerenby Jonathan Lopez
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 2008-08-15; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops:
Son of a Grifter: The Twisted Tale of Sante and Kenny Kimes, the Most Notorious Con Artists in Americaby Kent Walker with Mark Schone
Avon; Published: 2002-04-02; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.97
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Quest for Respect: A Healing Guide for Survivors of Rapeby Linda Braswell
Pathfinder Publishing; Published: 1996-12-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.08
Price in other shops:
The Truth About Rapeby Teresa M Lauer MALMHC
RapeRecovery.com; Published: 2002-03-21; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.95
Price in other shops:
I Can't Get Over It: A Handbook for Trauma Survivorsby Aphrodite Matsakis Ph.D.
New Harbinger Publications; Published: 1996-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.03
Price in other shops:
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--from Domestic Abuse to Political Terrorby Judith Herman
Basic Books; Published: 1997-05-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.47
Price in other shops:
Sexual Assault: Will I Ever Feel Okay Again?by Kay Scott
Bethany House Publishers; Published: 1993-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.69
Price in other shops:
Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recoveryby Patricia Weaver Francisco
Harper Perennial; Published: 2000-01-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops:
Recovering From Rapeby Linda E. Ledray
Holt Paperbacks; Published: 1994-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.67
Price in other shops:
I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting, and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rapeby Robin Warshaw
Harper Perennial; Published: 1994-07-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.24
Price in other shops:
Resurrection After Rape: A guide to transforming from victim to survivorby Matt Atkinson
R.A.R. Publishing; Published: 2008-06-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops:
The Rape Recovery Handbook: Step-by-Step Help for Survivors of Sexual Assaultby Aphrodite Matsakis Ph.D.
New Harbinger Publications; Published: 2003-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.59
Price in other shops: