After Silence: Rape and My Journey Back

"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 after effects 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.

'[The book conveys] the damage wrought by [rape victims'] silence....should be read by anyone who cares about women and rape....and by everyone who thinks we have paid too much attention to the victimization of women or who thinks that women should just 'get over it.' Linda M. Williams, The Women's Review of Books

'On October 11, 1992, the seventh anniversary of her rape, Raine 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...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.' Publisher's Weekly

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