The Telling: A Memoir

by Zoe Zolbrod

"Zolbrod shows great courage as she tries to answer difficult and troubling questions about herself and her family, a powerfully rendered struggle that will strike a chord with abuse survivors and their loved ones."
— Publishers Weekly

"Evocative, fiercely intelligent, and beautifully constructed. In telling her story, Zolbrod becomes a time traveler, making elegant leaps from early childhood to her unconventional coming of age to the embattled but deep satisfactions of her own motherhood. The Telling is a necessary memoir in every way." —Claire Dederer, author of My Life in 23 Poses Zoe Zolbrod remained silent about her early childhood molestation for nearly a decade. When she finally decided to tell, she wasn't sure what to expect, or what to say. Through a kaleidoscopic series of experiences—Zolbrod hitchhikes with a boyfriend from one coast to another, hangs out in a strip club in Philadelphia, meets and marries her husband, and gives birth to her children—she traces the development of her sexuality, her relationships with men, and the cultivation of her motherhood in the shadow of her childhood sexual abuse. Bolstered with research, Zolbrod argues passionately for the empowerment of sexual abuse victims and the courage it takes to talk about it. The Telling is an intimate examination of one woman's reckoning with a past she can't always explain, and a life lived in search for the right words. Zoe Zolbrod 's work has appeared in Salon , the Nervous Breakdown , the Weeklings , and the Rumpus , where she serves as the Sunday Editor. Her debut novel Currency won a 2010 Nobbie Award and received an honorable mention by Friends of American Writers. Zolbrod lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband and children.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Feminism, Biography Memoir, Psychology

300 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2016

About the author

Zoe Zolbrod is the author of the memoir The Telling (Curbside Splendor, 2016) and the novel Currency (Other Voices Books, 2010), which was a Friends of American Writers prize finalist. Her essays have appeared in Salon, Stir Journal, The Weeklings, The Manifest Station, The Nervous Breakdown, and The Rumpus, where she is now the Sunday co-editor. She gradated from Oberlin College and received an M.A. from the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Program for Writers. Born in Western Pennsylvania, she now lives in Evanston, IL, with her husband and two children.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review for the Chicago Tribune:

The British writer and literary critic V.S. Pritchett is said to have remarked that when it comes to personal narrative, "It's all in the art. You get no credit for living." He meant, of course, that no matter how inherently interesting or momentous a true story is, if its author can't tell that story well, then the resulting piece of memoir will not amount to much.

The story that Evanston-based novelist and editor for The Rumpus Zoe Zolbrod has to tell in her memoir "The Telling" is undoubtedly a weighty one. Between the ages of four and five she was regularly molested by her teenage cousin, whom she calls Toshi, and in this account she seeks, as she puts it, "to leave behind the flat prose of psychology texts and frame my own experience." In doing so, she hopes "to connect across the page with others and ease the isolation I'd felt about this part of my life." Not that Zolbrod is looking for "credit" by any means, per Pritchett's formulation, but the resulting work is stunningly creditable: humane, empathetic, personal and fascinating.

Certainly, the "gap between my experience of sexual abuse and the cultural reading of it," as well as her feeling that "I don't fit in any one schema" in terms of how those who have experienced such trauma process those events is of intrinsic relevance and import. But the art and skill with which Zolbrod presents her lifelong coming to terms with this troubling and difficult-to-talk-about aspect of her past — an aspect that she notes is unfortunately shared by many other people — is what makes "The Telling" so compelling.

Although at 257 pages the book is not especially lengthy, the generous perspective and time-shifting capaciousness with which Zolbrod approaches her material makes the memoir feel big. It ends up being a story not only of trauma, but of how she has become the individual — the daughter, the partner, the mother, the writer — that she is today. The writing feels big-brained, thanks to the research she includes alongside her more intimate reckoning, in chapters with titles that start "Research Shows," then have such subheadings as "Not Just Girls," "One out of Five," "Why It's Hard to Tell," and "Causes of Pedophilia."

So too does Zolbrod's approach feel big-hearted thanks to the frank empathy she extends to her own abuser, writing, "People who commit horrific acts are also fellow humans and were once children," and pointing out that the "lack of a clear program of rehabilitation for pedophilia is one of the things that makes the issue of child sexual abuse so messy, uncomfortable, and depressing." She also extends understanding to her parents at whom she feels confusion and anger, but of whom she ultimately is able to ask: "Why had I believed my parents would express a deep outrage on my behalf, that their feelings would have a clarity that would give a shape to my own?"

The structure of the book contributes to this sense of immensity, for Zolbrod breaks her account into three sections: "Youth," "Adulthood," and "Family." Within each of these broader categories, she has chapters that let her move kaleidoscopically back and forth in time, returning over and over again to her own memories of both of the abuse itself and of the various occasions on which she told other people in her life about it — friends, boyfriends, family members, her parents, and (sort of) her own children.

Zolbrod raises the complexity and ambiguity of childhood sexual abuse, repeatedly acknowledging that she does not want to be too grandiose, and she isn't. Her tone is reasoned and low-key as she seeks to move past received ideas on victimhood and define for herself what her experiences mean.

"Unflinching" is a word that gets tossed around a lot in relation to memoirs; so are "brave" and "honest" and "heart-wrenching." Zolbrod's "The Telling" is all of these things. Self-possessed and self-aware, she sets out to move beyond the "near hysteria over the issue" and offers a way to see through the "fog when we confront the issue under our own noses, under our own covers, stuffed under our beds." Beautifully and on her own terms, she succeeds.

[Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zolbrod's approach to writing about her childhood sexual assault is to talk about each time she told someone about it, up to the point where she decided she needed to write this book. There is a lot of frank and open discussion about not only the initial molestation but about how she reacted to it, even when she did not see it as traumatic. Her understanding grew as she aged. It's never an easy or straightforward subject to broach but Zolbrod makes every effort to clearly articulate why she didn't feel like her experience matched that of those who were speaking out in media and self-help books.

[Avery Guess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compelling memoir about the effects of incest on the life of the author as a child, a teen, a younger adult, a wife, and a mother. This book is well-written and lyrical at times while also containing important information and statistics about childhood sexual abuse. As the survivor of father-daughter incest, I was particularly appreciative of Zolbrod's handling and understanding the complexities of what it means to survive such abuse. I look forward to reading more of Zolbrod's writing.

[Karin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Major trigger warnings for sexual abuse of a minor here. Avoid if you can't read that--but if you can, I thought this author did such a wonderful job examining her circumstances, and relaying the impact it had on her life. There were some sections of her young adulthood that to be honest just dragged and didn't add all *that* much to the memoir, but despite that I would definitely recommend this memoir.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't decide whether to give it 2 stars or 3. It was really just okay to me. I think part of the problem was that I went through something similar to what the author did, but my experience was so different, I found it difficult to relate. Still, I can't hold that against her, and it's such difficult subject matter, I gave it the extra star. It's not a terrible memoir; the parts related to the abuse and how it has affected her life are interesting, and there were a couple of points where I gained some insight into my own tribulations (which is half the purpose of reading a memoir, right?). But why so much space dedicated to how her son cries easily? Why so much worship of her father in that chapter toward the end? Why so much details about the flowers in the conclusion? It just felt like it veered off course at times. The side trips were interesting, but they didn't add to the overall story. Perhaps I had my editor hat on a little too much for this one.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zoe Zolbrod's compelling and forthright memoir of sexual abuse by an older cousin raises some fascinating questions rarely posed. Did the abuse have a damaging impact on the five-year-old girl? The book's existence would say yes, but the speaker's answer is measured. Yes and no. Does the telling change that impact? The book's title (as well as several chapter titles) would say yes. The telling has its own pronounced effect on the speaker and sometimes disappointingly little on the ones with whom she shares. The Telling deserves many listeners.

[Sari Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible memoir. Fierce, intelligent and so beautifully written. At times it took my breath away. Zoe Zolbrod looks at her life, parenting, sexuality, identity as she examines her childhood sexual abuse. It's a kind of coming of age story-- about being a girl, a woman, and then a parent. It glimmers, like a prism, with the light of many truths. THE TELLING is a beautiful memoir filled raw honesty, a rare clear-eyed intelligence and gorgeous language. Bravo!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very strong writing in here, moving. Much more complex than I expected, much more to think about. The depth of thought and analysis is impressive.

[Nancy Slavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I commend Zolbrod for taking on a personal and rigorous exploration of her experience of being sexually abused at a young age by an older cousin, Toshi. The author works hard to write with an objective self committed to learning and understanding the affects and impacts of that ongoing experience. The structure of The Telling is a non-linear encapsulation of the aftermath of abuse, starting with the recent birth of the speaker's first child and weaving through adolescence and young adulthood and the specific events of the childhood, all while mixing in research and contemplation and cultural elements. The writing and structure is deft and smooth, which is truly a feat in and of itself. The voice of the narrator, her curious and scholarly but colloquial tone, allow the reader to feel the main character's experience of trying to figure it all out. And the questions inherent in the problem of sexual abuse are explored: how does a child react to being abused, how does a child tell, who would a child tell and why (or why not) and how? What about gender and age and family dynamics? How do all those affect the revelation of abuse? Who is accountable? How does one heal? These questions are ones so many who've experienced abuse will relate to and which Zolbrod does not gloss over, but dives into.

The trouble with this book is the one important blind spot that is glossed over: the issue of Toshi's own family dynamic. This dynamic is mentioned of it at the very beginning of the memoir and again at the end. The dynamic includes Zolbrod's father, who took the then-young Toshi from his mother, an immigrant, at the "demand" of his older brother, Morris. The father says Toshi's mother, Chiyo, "kept calling me at my apartment, and she was so confused. If she has been more savvy, she could have had me arrested for kidnapping." Um, yes. That issue, the one of the uncle and father of Toshi being a domestic abuser of the highest degree is a critical point that unfortunately is not as explored and analyzed in the ways other aspects are of abuse are in this book.

[Jean Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book...you need to read this. If you've known abuse--I have, I know, it's not a time you want to visit, yet you know that time must come--you need to read this. Zolbrod takes us through a year of abuse with details that brought back old nightmares. Her prose binds us to the past...but we walk with her away from that year. She guides us not only through pain and fear, but through bravery, love, and motherhood, too. And that moment she tells her parents...I cried.

If you, if your loved one, struggle to tell...you need to read this.

As for me, I cannot thank Zolbrod enough for tearing these old wounds open, and giving me the power to clean them at last.

I share more about the power of this book here, and here. Read on. And tell.

Cheers.

https://jeanleesworld.com/2016/09/08/...

https://jeanleesworld.com/2016/09/29/...

[Blooming Minimally]

I had an advanced readers edition, so I feel that it is unfair to rate this book. This book was very thought provoking and helpful in my work, actually. I work in social services with kids who have either been the victims and/or perpetrators of sexual abuse. A few years ago, I learned that neglect is actually more impactful than most form of abuse when it comes to the severity and scope of trauma symptoms. This logic was backwards from what many people would expect, since, as the author points out, adults view child sexual assault as the worst kind of offense.

I actually enjoyed how she had some chapters that were more informational, as this spoke to my rational research-minded brain. To me, it wove the story together with the evidence, instead of presenting a purely anecdotal or purely data-driven story.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I personally enjoyed the memoir. It was the first memoir I have read and it has inspired me to read more memoirs. I loved how some of Zolbrod's chapters included research because it helped explain a lot of her experience. It was one of my favorite parts and I wish it had included more research. The time-traveling in the book gave it a nice effect. Although if you aren't paying attention it can cause conflict and confusion. Zolbrod is honest and is not afraid to speak her mind which makes her a great write. I totally recommend the memoir to anyone.

[Madison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found this book at a used bookstore and the beautiful cover caught my eye! The author was raw and thoughtful. This book was a very strong 3 (or maybe even a 4)- it took me a while to get through it, but I was really engaged and invested in the second half. I grew attached to the words, experiences and thoughts of the author. Reading non-fiction and reading about sexual abuse are not the norm for me, but I’m really thankful for this read.

One of my fave quotes:
“Just the thought of my father makes me feel better about the world”

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one fell into my lap from a free little library, and the topic interested me. I read this during a camp trip, a perfect time to fall into a book. The author was a great writer in many ways, describing a difficult topic with brutal honestly and clarity and in a poetic way. I was intrigued to read her various stages of life and how they connected to her whole. I would like to read more on childhood sexual abuse because I see clients who have experienced it.

[EmelineB]

The telling explores the ramifications of sexual abuse in early childhood, for the victim and her family. It tells uncomfortable truths about how we overlook or minimize these acts to continue functioning, the time it takes to come to terms with this event. Heartwrenching.

[Cook Memorial Public Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

A 2016 staff favorite recommended by Susie.

Check our catalog: https://encore.cooklib.org/iii/encore...

[Cason Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heavy hitting memoir. Zoe tells her story in a very unique way.

[Jacqui · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memorable Quotes

“There are few takers for stray teenagers, those monsters of mood, oil, limbs, sex and stink. What a time to be thrust out to stalk the earth.”

“In any game of moral relativity it’s the children who demand our greatest sympathies. They’re always entirely guiltless, absolutely vulnerable – at what age is this no longer true?”

“The risk of becoming a victim was one of the defining features that separated our gender from the other, a big part of what made us girls and them boys.”

“Over twenty percent of children who report sexual abuse recant their accusations at some point. Research shows that most of the children who recant were originally telling the truth, and that family influences are what led them to rescind their testimony.”

“In many ways, I fall into the camp of borrowing from my parents’ parenting strategies – their mix of leniency and authority; their prioritization of honesty.”

“And of course some people should touch her butt and vulva, someday. She’ll want them to. She’ll want them to so badly that the world will consist of just that need, a spreading desire as burning and lit as lava, with the potential to change her landscape forever.”

“There is no excuse for emotionally, physically, or sexually abusing a child. But what becomes clear with study is that childhood trauma often begets trauma for the next generation of children. People who commit horrific acts are also fellow humans and were once children.”

“When something is both horrible and commonplace, especially when it’s caught in the web of loyalty and blood, it’s easy to look away, make the bet that it won’t happen again, assume if it’s really of great consequence, someone else will force it to stop.”

“...would my telling this story be more likely to heal, or help, or hurt?”

“There’s a universal understanding that protection equals love, that a father should guard his daughter, become enraged when he cannot, has failed if he participates in any way in the trespass of her innocence.”

“Research shows that people have a tendency to let current psychological states bias their memories of past events. The worse you feel at the time someone asks you about a previous event in your life, the worse you remember the past event to be.”

“...though I didn’t necessarily view the molestation as a dramatic or totalizing experience, it’s never sat right with me, it’s never fully come into focus through any of the various lenses through which I’ve tried to view it. I want to make sense of it.”

[Rebecca Kuder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Telling, by Zoe Zolbrod, is beautifully-crafted and necessary. Woven with her own elegantly written story of child sexual abuse, Zolbrod includes statistics, achieving balance between narrative and resource. Anyone wanting to understand this complex issue will benefit from reading The Telling. Its journey is a deft navigation through the intricacies of the human psyche. In form, the memoir works as a whole and as a series of exquisite chapter-essays (some stand easily on their own.). As a parent, writer, teacher, and survivor of child sexual abuse, I found Zolbrod’s book inspiring and comforting in each cell of my body. One thing that sets this book apart from the traditional survivor narrative is the space Zolbrod gives to examination of the abuse narrative itself—interrogating the notion that abuse and its aftermath must always have one dominant effect on the soft tissue of the spirit. (Life is never quite that simple, as Zolbrod describes.) Zolbrod is unflinchingly candid, while also paying attention on the page to the nuances and boundaries of her various roles (woman, writer, mother, editor, former child). Sometimes it feels like she is looking through a prism at her past (and the issue of sexual abuse) and she is keenly able to discern from all sides, a kind of cumulative truth. In particular I loved reading about how she steers through her past as a protective but not overprotective mother. There is oxygen in this book. The fact that there is a writer in the world who is doing this sort of soul investigation (and that we have the privilege of reading her generous work) gives me hope for our future.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I'd been to see the author, Zoe Zolbrod, read from The Telling not once, but twice--in L.A. and Seattle--I fully expected to really like the book. It's with great delight, then, that I can say I really LOVED the book. I loved this book so much that I will be going back to it, re-reading the myriad ideas and paragraphs that stirred me.

To quote Zolbrod (as she was on her way to do a reading of her first novel a few years ago), "Among the people who showed up might be someone who would... find the thing expressed that they'd had rattling around half-articulated in their own chest." While this is a book that explores the author's muddy feelings around her childhood sexual abuse, Zolbrod writes with astute observation about every aspect of life: marriage, motherhood, teenage and adult sexuality, relationships with parents, fashion (!) and music. And so while her experiences are not like my experiences, they are. I related to her confusion around her "delayed" response to her abuse, and the degree to which she found it traumatic or not, as it resonated with regard to my own other's emotional abuse of me and my wrangling with it as an adult.

This is a book I hope everyone will read. This is a trite statement, but it really does have something for everyone, and the writing is simply beautiful.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a stunning and nuanced book. While the telling (and, really, for most of the book, the not telling) of the author's story of childhood molestation is a central organizing principle of the narrative, it would be a mistake to say the book is "about" childhood sexual abuse. It isn't. It's about being a smart woman living a good, if not always easy, life. The molestation is part of that life, but only a part. This is a book that fully embraces intersectionality; this is the kind of feminism we need. But it's also the lovely story of a strong-willed little girl, a young woman determined to find adventure and an understanding of the world, and a mother who has to come to terms with the dangers we see for our children that they don't see for themselves--and to find a way to let them be as self-determining and free as she has been in spite of wanting to protect them from those dangers. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This is, in short, a book about what it is to be a woman in the world.

[Susanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE TELLING is an absolutely fantastic memoir that takes the genre a bit further with Zolbrod's determinedly feminist and self-investigative exploration of what happens to a person after being molested. But really, it is wrong to say "a person," because Zolbrod clearly explores what has happened to her, and how that awareness of what happened to her has evolved over the years following -- particularly, how her understanding of the events that started when she was about 4 years old has morphed as she became a teen, then a young woman, then a mother and a writer.

The cover notes that Zolbrod's memoir is "bolstered with research," which is one factor that made me curious about the book. Indeed, the bits of research Zolbrod opts to include are tightly integrated into the story, which weaves between "now" and "then" fluidly, always easy to read and always thought-provoking.

[Cinnamon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sexual abuse is horrifying and awful. But it leaves complex reactions and thoughts for victims, many of which I've felt haven't been covered in self-help or therapeutic literature. Not only does Zoe explain abuse in a nuanced manner, she explains recovery in a multi-faceted manner. She also manages to create a book about abuse that doesn't focus on the abuse. It is in here, so be warned if that is hard to read, but you don't feel scarred by the reading. This book focuses on the healing, not the abuse. A shift I appreciated. And it is done beautifully. A must read for any parent. Even if you're not an adult who was abused as a child.

[Meg Tuite · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zolbrod adds so much to the complexity of what it is to be a survivor of sexual abuse. Zolbrod's work is visceral and important! I love the weaving of her studies on pedophiles and how difficult it is to reform them, the pyschology of survivors, mixed with her experiences of 'telling' and how she, her family, and others respond. She is an exceptional essayist who moves the reader through the lens of a child who has been sexually abused throughout her life as a lover, an adventurer, a daughter, a wife, and a mother. Not to be missed! Brave and necessary.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a deeply intelligent, moving, well researched and extremely interesting and engaging memoir by a writer who I hope will soon have another book out in the world. She writes about her experience as a victim of child sexual abuse, and about female sexuality, family, adolescence, adulthood, parenthood - all with such intelligence. This book was difficult to put down - so interesting and affecting. I loved it.

[Kirsten Palladino · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved THE TELLING. I'm writing my own memoir about sexual abuse, so I was drawn in because of the topic. I appreciated the information that Zoe shares about statistics and research about child sexual abuse so that more of the general population--especially people who have no experience of being abused but also the ones who have--can learn what so many survivors of abuse deal with.

Zoe weaves her past, her present and research all into one marvelous book. Highly recommend!

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing, but not perfect (and amazing in it's imperfection). the back and forth tug of both the timeline and teasing out of ideas surrounding Zolbrod's story was incredibly seamlessly rendered - one of the blurbs described this as a page turner and that was absolutely true for me. in some ways I was dreading reading this book, but I'm so glad that Read/Write Library picked it for their first selection for Hungry for Stories. a gut punch, but an important one.

[Tammy Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a brave book and the way Zolbrod weaves in incidents of “telling” is very resonant. I thought it could have worked better as a long essay. Parts of it felt stretched, like do we really need every last detail of your sex life? I know, I know, given the subject matter it was probably worth exploring, but still. Also the wider scope/researched sections felt shoehorned in by an editor.

[Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book through a GoodReads giveaway. The book was good. It just made me feel weird inside in parts, especially during the beginning. But I suppose given the subject matter that's probably a good point.

[Scott Waldyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

'The Telling' is moving, thoughtful, inspiring, and courageous. It's one of those rare books you may come across that put what it means to be an ever-evolving human into perspective. Life-altering. Nothing short of incredible.