Like millions of women, Eve Ensler has been waiting much of her lifetime for an apology. Sexually and physically abused by her father, Eve has struggled her whole life from betrayal, longing for an honest reckoning from a man who is long dead. After years of work as an anti-violence activist, she decided she would wait no longer ; an apology could be imagined, by her, for her, to her. The apology, written by Eve from her father's point of view in the words she longed to hear, attempts to transform the abuse she suffered with unfliching truthfulness, compassion and an expansive vision for the future.
Through The apology, Eve has set out to provide a new way for herself and a possible road for others, so that survivors of abuse may finally envision how to be free. She grapples with questions she has sought answers to since she first realized the impact of her father's abuse on her life. How do we offer a doorway rather than a locked cell ? How do we move from humiliation to revelation, from curtailing behavior to changing it, from condemning perpetrators to calling them to reckoning ? What will it take for abusers to genuinely apologize ?
Remarkable and original, The apolog is an acutely transformational look at how, from the wounds of sexual abuse, we can begin to re-emerge and heal. It is revolutionary, asking everything of each of us : courage, honesty and forgiveness.
How do I review a book like this, that felt like a punch in my stomach ?
I've read Eve Ensler's books years ago, but I never knew much about her. I imagined all right there was something somewhere in her life that led her to this, but this amount of violence... This book is appalling and touching at the same time, centered around this abusive, pedophile, manipulative and angry man who raged until his death.
His own story, about this parents and his brother, is no better and it's no wonder he became what he became. That doctor whose advice his parents followed made me think about those nazi doctors who experimented on babies.
I never knew about all that she went through as an adult, a whole life of struggles with alcohol and self-doubt, among other things.
I read this book in one sitting, then had a good whiskey and raised my glass to the wonderful woman who survived all this, cheers Eve, yac'h mad !
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