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Books on Friday

 Jami Attenberg attended Johns Hopkins, where she was sexually assaulted. She was discouraged from reporting the incident, but she made a report.


Various deans came to Attenberg with an option: You can have the guy expelled, or you can allow him to attend weekly therapy sessions. At this point, vicious rumors were circulating with regard to Attenberg. She didn't want to ruin a life. She chose the weekly therapy sessions.

A year later, after Attenberg had attempted suicide, she was connected with her own series of therapy sessions. The sessions didn't achieve anything, and Attenberg stopped going, and no one seemed to notice.

What followed was heavy drug use and aimlessness. Attenberg wrote three novels, then her publisher dumped her. A fourth novel found its way to Jonathan Franzen; this happened by accident. Franzen offered a blurb--and his two sentences changed the course of Attenberg's career.

But success wasn't simple. Attenberg describes a particular reading; at the end, a man approached and said, "You remind me of my daughter. She is a narcissist, like you." Attenberg tried teaching; bluntly, she told herself she was failing, she was wasting her students' money. Like any other writer, Attenberg is consumed with self-doubt; imagine her discomfort when she presented her new manuscript to her boyfriend, and he didn't read it. And didn't read it. And didn't read it.

Attenberg's memoir is (weirdly) disorganized; you're rarely entirely sure which decade you're visiting. On the other hand, Attenberg's honesty is a gift; she doesn't let herself off the hook. This makes her good company. And it's easy to see yourself in Attenberg's words; whenever someone tells the truth, she is narrating not just her own life, but, also, *all* lives. (We're all essentially the same.)

This led me to think about at least one other memoir; soon, I'll tackle "No One Gets to Fall Apart," by Sarah LaBrie.
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