{"id":1254,"date":"2015-02-09T14:26:47","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T14:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/02\/09\/five-questions-for-jessica-stern\/"},"modified":"2025-02-27T16:57:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-27T16:57:43","slug":"five-questions-for-jessica-stern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/02\/09\/five-questions-for-jessica-stern\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessica Stern on Memoir, Denial and Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jessica Stern \/ Photo by Joel Benjamin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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Jessica Stern, a Harvard lecturer and fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights<\/a> at the Harvard School of Public Health, is known as an expert on terrorism. She has written three books on the topic, serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law, is a Fulbright Scholar and won a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on trauma and violence.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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But she is also the author of a powerful memoir about her own experience with terror, when she and her sister were raped at gunpoint as teenagers, a crime that went unsolved and was largely dismissed by police and her family. That book, \u201cDenial: A Memoir of Terror,\u201d<\/a> was named one of the Washington Post\u2019s best non-fiction books of 2010.  (Author Alex Kotlowitz also cited \u201cDenial\u201d on Storyboard last fall<\/a> as \u201cwhat memoir ought to be about.\u201d)<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Before a recent discussion with the current class of Nieman fellows, Stern sat down with Storyboard to talk about the process of reporting and writing a memoir and how it has affected her life and work. An edited conversation follows:<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The book is really, really intense. I remember at one point you talk about wanting to smash a doctor\u2019s skull. Why did you feel it was important to document those emotions? Did you ever consider excising those sections? Why or why not?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I strongly considered excising them. In fact, I read out loud that particular section that you\u2019re referring to, to my sister, and she said, \u201cYou have to cut that out.\u201d I decided not to cut it out because I was writing a memoir of a disorder and of feelings that I know that other people have but that we don\u2019t talk about. I wanted the book to be healing for people who have had similar experiences.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In order to write that book, I had to be in a kind of trance to find feelings that I\u2019m normally too embarrassed to feel, or to, certainly to articulate. But not even just articulate. To actually notice that I\u2019m feeling, because they\u2019re impolite feelings, they\u2019re ugly, they\u2019re violent. I think some of those feelings are the sequelae of violence. I decided it was important to put them out there.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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You brought up your sister\u2019s reaction, and it seems that many times when people write memoirs, there\u2019s a price to pay in terms of how members of the family react. How present, if at all, was that in your mind when you were doing the writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It was present in my mind all the time. Maybe not in the moment of writing, but it was certainly very much on my mind for years while I was\u2026I overshared with my sister.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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My sister was also a victim, and every time I learned something new, I felt I had to tell her. It was very traumatizing for me to learn that the next girl who was raped killed herself, for example.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Since the book came out, I learned that it was a real gun. I\u2019ve heard from many other victims of the same guy. Of course, I want to tell my sister, but just as it\u2019s traumatizing for me, it\u2019s very traumatizing for her. I was writing a book and I was in therapy and I had all kinds of support. It wasn\u2019t really fair.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Then my dad went back and forth between feeling really excited that I was writing about his science, his accomplishments as a scientist, and as a mountain climber and feeling really, really angry. Mainly about the reviews. Many people, I\u2019ve discovered, review books without reading them. That book is not a book that should be reviewed if the person doesn\u2019t read the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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There have been all these stories and some poor reporting about rape and sexual crimes.Where does your story fit in and what do you see as some of the challenges in doing this kind of reporting that perhaps journalists could learn how to do better?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I think the denial of the victim is the most difficult kind of denial.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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When you say that, what do you mean denial of the victim?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The victim does not want to believe what happened. I think we all are not\u2026Maybe not we all, but many people, when something bad happens, we prefer to deny that it happened. Just go on and hope for the best. With something as extreme as rape at gunpoint, that is very dangerous.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I was living with the bad parts of what I did to myself, through my own denial. It wasn\u2019t just the denial of the community and the police, which is very common, to blame the victim. My father. But the worst denial was my own.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Do you have ideas about what\u2019s really needed to do a good job of reporting on those kinds of crimes and telling those stories?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I think that it\u2019s often very hard to remember what happened. I would not have been able to write that book. No way could I write that book if I didn\u2019t have hundreds of pages of documents. Police documents, documents from the time the rapist was in the hospital. I was able to get those. A prison hospital. I just wouldn\u2019t remember. It\u2019s very hard to be accurate about sexual assault for, I imagine for either party.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Do you think that you would do anything differently if you were writing that book today?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I don\u2019t think I could do it. I was ready to do it in that moment. Right now, I wouldn\u2019t want to upset myself that much. It was really unhinging. I wanted to capture that craziness. I had to do it slowly. I wanted to get it down on the page and then take a break. I don\u2019t want to do that anymore. I wouldn\u2019t want to do it again.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Having really gone so deeply in, explored, and relived that situation, does that now in turn inform your work on terrorism and talking to terrorists?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It\u2019s very difficult, the work I do talking to perpetrators. It\u2019s very difficult spiritually, because I am trying to connect with the human being that they are. Because they\u2019re not just a perpetrator. Yet, I know they are a perpetrator and they know I know. It\u2019s manipulative.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I\u2019m also going to tell a story about the human being they are, but at the same time I\u2019m not going to become their best friend, and I\u2019m not going to deny what the court says about their actions. Terrorists I\u2019ve talked to have said, \u201cWe\u2019re not terrorists. You need to write that we\u2019re not terrorists.\u201d I say, \u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to do that. By my definition, you\u2019re a terrorist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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But there are moments when we have that conversation, and there are moments when I\u2019m trying to connect with them. I think I\u2019m also more aware of the aggression of reporting. That the reporter, there is a certain amount of almost stealing someone\u2019s character, and hopefully for a good purpose. But I\u2019m aware of my role. I\u2019m much more aware of that. Do you know what I mean? I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m saying it right.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Is there anything in a discussion of your memoir that you want to emphasize or include?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I wanted to tell a story that would help other victims. Therefore, I wanted to go to the edge, essentially, of insanity. The edge of insanity that I must have been at when I was age 15, but I could do much more safely at a different point in my life. So that people could see that even if you get to that edge of insanity, there is a way to get back. There\u2019s a way to become whole.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jessica Stern, a Harvard lecturer and fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, is known as an expert on terrorism. She has written three books on the topic, serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law, is a Fulbright Scholar and won a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[431],"topics":[],"authors":[],"issue":[],"class_list":["post-1254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-5-questions","tag-memoir"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nJessica Stern on Memoir, Denial and Terror - Nieman Storyboard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2015\/02\/09\/five-questions-for-jessica-stern\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jessica Stern on Memoir, Denial and Terror - Nieman Storyboard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jessica Stern, a Harvard lecturer and fellow at the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health, is known as an expert on terrorism. 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