Trauma Plot: A Life
Jamie Hood. Pantheon, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-0-593-70097-6
In this brilliant memoir, poet and essayist Hood (How to Be a Good Girl) recounts a series of rapes she suffered in her 20s and probes the limits of narrative’s ability to describe the fallout. Between 2012 and 2014, Hood was raped three times by different men—some she knew, some she did not—in Boston and Brooklyn. Drawing on journal entries and her memories to convey the terror she felt during the attacks, Hood supplements her recollections with distanced, critical assessments of her assailants. After regaining consciousness in the middle of one assault, for example, Hood accepted her rapist’s offer to drive her home. She recalls his steady stream of chatter, his nonchalant grip on the steering wheel, and how she wondered later if he interpreted her decision to get in the car “as absolution.” She’s just as unflinching in recounting her behavior in the months following each rape, including excessive drinking, drug use, and risky sex, as she attempted to reclaim her own desires and distance herself from victimhood. In the bruising final section, Hood works with a therapist to process the violence and wrestles with how to present her story (“Why should I make my rape book artful.... shouldn’t trauma be a mess?”). With piercing intellect and lyrical prose, Hood redraws the boundaries of the tell-all memoir. It’s a rare feat of storytelling. Agent: Ayla Zuraw-Friedland, Frances Goldin Literary. (Mar.)
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Reviewed on: 01/14/2025
Genre: Nonfiction