After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back [Paperback]

Nancy Venable Raine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1999

"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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

On October 11, 1992Athe seventh anniversary of her rapeARaine determined that she would write about her assault and recovery. Six years of reflection and wide-ranging research served this talented writer well, for her account, studded with references to everything from Greek myths to government statistics, is fascinating and surprisingly readable. Raine describes the rape itself with remarkable objectivity. Then she describes the many small steps that she, like so many other rape victims, took to cope with the shame and ruptured faith that were the cruel legacy of her attack. After a period of relative isolation, followed by a stretch of believing she had "gotten over it," Raine was hit with intense depression. But the psychotherapy she underwent at the timeAcombined presumably with the writing of this bookAhelped bring her at last to a place where she can voice the pain of her experience, even if she can't erase it. Skillfully interwoven into this narrative are insightful digressions into, for example, the neurological underpinnings of post-traumatic stress disorder and the psychology behind that powerful emotion, shame. Neither self-pitying nor shrill, Raine has achieved an impressive balance between a starkly candid memoir of personal trauma and an ingenious literary discussion of an all-too-often unspeakable crime.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Three Rivers Press; 1st Pbk. Ed edition (August 3, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609804197
• ISBN-13: 978-0609804193
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (56 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #158,942 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Abuse & Self Defense > Rape

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Journey Worth Taking With Raine, July 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back (Paperback)

This book was fantastic. Not only did he help me understand what I am going through, but it also helped my fiance. I just can't explain some of my thoughts and feelings to him and by him reading them in the book and asking me if I felt or did not feel the same it helped us to talk about it and this helps me a lot beacuse it is hard for me to talk about --- not just with him but in general. Raine helps the reader to realize they are not so alone. I had read several books and seen many movies about rape before my rape, but I still feel so alone sometimes. Raine made me realize that this is normal and will probably be my normal for a long time. I HIGHLY recommend this book to all survivors --- and possibly their loved ones if they feel comfortable sharing the feelings this book will reveal.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars After Silence, March 27, 2000

By 

Vanessa Jackson (St. Louis, Missouri) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back (Paperback)

Nancy Raine's After Silence, her firsthand account of her rape and her life after the rape, is compelling, illuminating, and essential reading. Brutally honest, Nancy shares her private story of surviving and recovering from rape.

Raine helps her readers understand the severe and often lifelong psychological consequences of being victimized, the ambivalent reactions of other people to rape survivors, and the personal anguish in recovering from being raped. Raine elucidates her feelings of helplessness and terror during the rape, her treatment by the legal and medical system, other people's reactions to her rape, and her social and emotional isolation after the rape. She leads us through her coming to terms with the rape, with the new person she feels she becomes, with other people's reactions, and with her post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms. Through Raine's words, we watch a severely traumatized woman learn to regain control of her life and learn to trust and love again.

Raine's book raises many important questions: Why the shame of being a victim of rape? Why is the victim blamed? Why do some people still think that rape is "assault with a friendly weapon?" Why people's ambivalent reactions to rape? Why the silence?

Raine decided to end the silence about rape by bravely sharing her story with the world. Why should she be ashamed? She is the victim; she did nothing wrong. She purposely and insistently breaks the taboos about rape to try to pave the path for rape victims to speak out about this abominable and prevalent crime.

There were an estimated 9 million women raped in the United States alone between 1972 and 1991. In the United States, a woman is raped every two minutes; eighty-three percent of women with disabilities will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime; only twenty-six percent of rapes are reported to the police. Over fifty percent of rape survivors suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, which can include the reexperiencing of the attack through nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and flashbacks; the avoidance of thoughts, feelings, places, and activities associated with the rape; difficulty concentrating; mood swings; and a diminished interest in former activities. These are just a few of the many terrifying and eye-opening statistics about the prevalence and seriousness of rape (in this country alone!)

Books like After Silence are necessary to combat the public's denial and apathy about the pervasiveness and seriousness of sexual crimes on women. After Silence can also help rape survivors understand that they are not alone and that their reactions to being raped are "normal." The general public should read the book so they can better understand the experience of being raped and life after rape. Hopefully the public and the legal system will learn to more supportive to rape survivors and more committed to ending (sexual) violence against women.

Reviewed by Vanessa Jackson

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A voice for the inner world of rape survivors, October 15, 2002

By 

Nissa (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: After Silence: Rape & My Journey Back (Paperback)

Reading this book will show you that you are not alone. Nancy Venable Raine talks extensively about the damaging effects of being silenced, and of keeping the secret. She expresses that rape is a death and that healing is a discovery of who you are.

Nancy writes with such poetic detail that you feel the depth of terror in her experience, but you also feel incredible joy that she survived to be the person that she is.

Nancy Venable Raine offers fabulous insight into PTSD, and it's effects on brain chemistry.

In addition her telling and understanding of the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone (Originally "The Hymn to Demeter") was one of the best and most touching that I have ever read. Another great book about women's journeys to sexual healing (including a telling of the myth of Demeter and Persephone) is "Aphrodite's Daughters" by Jalaja Bonheim.

On Page 243 of "After Silence" Nancy Venable Raine says, "The way back from victimization is not triumph over adversity. It is transformation through grief, rage, and loss." I feel that transformation is a very accurate description and it is within our hands to achieve.

It was surprising to me how much I related to this book because I was raped during my childhood. But, I did relate to it tremendously. I think this is one of the best personal accounts of rape ever written.