Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery – An Intimate Fifteen-Year Journey from Trauma to Truth, Hope, and Justice

by Patricia Weaver Francisco

"Patricia Francisco has done that rare thing; write with honesty about the act of evil and about her slow trudge to health in its aftermath. Her story is important for every woman to hear and every man to know. This book is impressive and very moving." — Louise Erdrich In this intimate memoir, Patricia Weaver Francisco tells of her fifteen-year journey to recognize and overcome the effects of rape. Francisco explores key aspects of a women's life in the aftermath of rape—passion, marriage, solitude, childbirth, motherhood. She invites the reader into her life and into the questions raised by a crime with no obvious solutions or easy answers. We see the dimensions of a human struggle often kept hidden from view. While there are millions of rape survivors in the United States, rape is still too often left out of our personal and cultural conversations. In  Telling , Francisco has found a language for the secret grief carried by people who have survived rape. Describing her fear during and after the rape in a visceral style, Francisco details her transformation of trauma into strength. This transformation begins by learning to talk about rape, to understand the resistance she encounters in herself and others. She chronicles a complex journey and wrestles with spiritual despair, outrage, and a longing for justice. But with awareness comes the return of pleasure, hunger, and desire. She reminds us how "beautiful the dignity of truth can be" and inspires in us a desire to listen, to know the truths that can transform our own lives. She also gives us a clear portrait of the tragic consequences for the survivor—and our culture—when we neglect this human story. Told with grace and a soul-stirring eloquence,  Telling  is, in the end, a form of power. It will leave you with a sense of hope and a renewed appreciation for life's possibilities. A compelling book,  Telling  will push the conversations that can bring hope and healing to the women who need it, and to their loved ones trying to help them.

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

240 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1999

Reviews

[C.C. Yager · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Weaver Francisco edited my novel, Perceval's Secret. At the time, I bought her memoir but didn't get a chance to read it until the last two weeks. Wow. This is a powerful, powerful book.

Her descriptions of her PTSD captured the essential emotion, the disorientation at times, the dissociation. If you have ever wondered what PTSD is or how it affects people, Francisco shows what it is and how it affected her. I loved her description of time as being a circle, too. PTSD can be triggered again years later if an issue or memory has not been completely processed.

The description of her rape does not begin the memoir and I thought that was a wise decision. We first get to know her a little before she hits us with the life-changing event. I was struck by her memory of her dissociation and the accuracy of the description. The human mind has a wonderful collection of coping mechanisms that help us survive and dissociation is one of them. Her immediate post-rape reactions were wrenching to read making me think of how true to reality they were.

The long chapter toward the end, "Justice," is also wrenching at times, but gave me a lot of insight into Francisco's thought processes and what insights she gained from the experience of observing the trial of a serial rapist.

One point that comes up over and over in this book is how few books there are about women's experience with rape. It takes a lot of courage, of fearlessness to write about an experience that is both violent and intimate at the same time. Francisco shatters all the myths about rape, too.

I highly recommend this book, especially for men to read (especially older men still influenced by outdated beliefs about rape), and rape survivors who feel alone. You are not alone.

[Cindy Dyson Eitelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The highly personal story of a woman who survived and even overcame--after a long, long time--a rape by a stranger who broke into her house when her husband was out of town. And by extension, the stories of many other women. I'm not saying their stories are alike, only that they all share certain elements that lingered long after the bruises and pain should have faded.

Feeling of powerlessness, worthlessness, irrational (and rational) fear. A marriage on the edge despite a strong, supportive husband. She quotes a certain statistic about marriage after rape that I won't write here, because that would deprive you of the impact it had on me when I read it in context. Nightmares, flashbacks, bad therapists.

Her rapist was never found, but ten years after the event she attended the trial of a serial rapist in a nearby neighborhood. He had a similar approach--watch the house or apartment, enter when he was fairly sure a woman was alone, cover her eyes, and steal whatever money or sell

able property was around. In the one case where there were two men in the apartment attacked, the difference between the men's reaction and hers was shocking. They all fought back--she had fought desperately and blindly, finally suffering a cut so deep that the attacker had to wrap it in a sheet. But the two men bided their time, caught their opportunity and found with effectiveness. (And a hockey stick.)

That trial alone made the whole painful book worth enduring. Read it.

[Lieca Brown Hohner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly the book I needed to help in my healing. So REAL. I wish I had already read it when I met her; I would have fawned all over her. She's an extraordinary writer in her own right, yet writing a memoir of such a personal and disturbing subject as rape has to be the greatest challenge. Francisco is raw yet delicate, assertive - even funny at times - descriptive but not callous, sensitive but not squishy-soft. Relatable about a deep, disruptive and taboo subject.

I will hold this book forever and read it several times more. Thank you, Patricia.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated a number of things about this book. This is centrally and importantly a relating of her own assault and its before's and after's, but more broadly it's a musing over rape and the threat of it, and the pervasive impacts of those things, both the obvious and the less visible [to some]. It also offers brief glimpses into US/Minnesota/Twin Cities history of the '70s, '80s and '90s, in terms of cultural and legal shifts regarding rape & domestic assaults, how rapes were (or were not) covered by the media, and how cases were addressed in court (including details about the admissibility of DNA evidence, the right to a victim impact statement, etc.). It's interesting to read it now, in the current era of #MeToo; to have a glimpse into how much has changed, and how much is heartbreakingly similar or the same. I was moved throughout the memoir by the way that members of her communities stepped in to show their love and support, and by reading the descriptions of awareness/support efforts in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, through speak-outs, marches, and traveling exhibitions. A wrenching but beautifully executed book.

[Malola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very important book. It's beautifully crafted.
It's as authoritative as One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery or the preamble of Lucky is. Telling has a very particular cadence to it, she delves a lot on minutia that may seem unnecessary, but it paints the picture of what it's like to live with PTSD always lurking.
Her points on how the body remembers are interesting, particularly when she mentions going to one of those aura-reading hippie masseuses. Tears just form. Her resistance to those treatments makes sense, not only her not wanting to be touch, but her reluctance to a new-age approach, which seems like pseudoscience to her ears. Yet we give and make meaning the weirdest ways. It's almost as if the brain is its own organ... detached from our desires, and likes.
She rights quite well, but I don't think I'll read this again. Though, it's not enery-sucking, the topic is very dense.

Woods
I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.
-Wendell Berry

[Kes · Rating 5 out of 5]

i think of this book often. i first read it several years ago for a college class on sex crimes, and have felt the urge to re-read it on and off again ever since. despite never having experienced rape myself, for whatever reason, this is one of the books that has crept closest to my soul. if you feel you have anything left to learn about the phenomenon of rape (which we all do), this book is an invaluable resource.

“If one’s fear is high enough, one cannot afford such a conversation, cannot afford to let rape sit across the table. It needs to be way across town, belonging to others, to those on television, to foolhardy women, to someone nothing like you. I learned to forgive the women who could not hear me, but this was the beginning of my learned silence as well.”

[Leslie Plesser · Rating 5 out of 5]

A phenomenal story of the survival of rape. I want to say it should be required reading for any rape victim as I think it would be invaluable, but then I also want to say it should be required reading for any woman as we all have friends who are victims. But then I settle on it should be required reading for anyone and everyone. Men need to be as much a part of this discussion as women. I was blown away by the detail, the research, and the heart that went into this book, and it's 2024 as I write this. I cannot imagine the shock and wonder when it was originally published in 1999. I will be thinking about this book for decades.

[Sally Kenney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Francisco was raped by a stranger in, I believe, 1981, so this account published in 1999 does not have the benefit of the "flowering" or rape memoirs and writing of late, yet, like Lara Naughton's beautiful Jaguar Man, is a deeply literary account of rape AND recovery. Like Irritable Hearts, Telling offers no sugar coating about the difficulties that lie ahead for survivors and love cannot conquer all. I wish I had read this book earlier on my journey, but perhaps reading it later enabled me to better appreciate its beauty and insight.

[Anne Reeder Heck · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly powerful book. I'm grateful to read from an intelligent and insightful writer who is courageous enough to put this type of trauma into words. Thank you.

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is discouraging how long the recovery part takes, but it is still important to know that it can come.

[courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is an amazing and heart-opening read. i may buy additional copies to pass around to everyone i know. i certainly want loved ones to read it. the clarity of her voice and the perspective she takes on her rape -- and her insistence on using the word RAPE -- are enormous to me. she looks through the years back at her rape and its aftermath and says what so few of us want to hear, but i think we know is true: we are no longer the same. like reading alice sebold's book, lucky, i am aware that the author is a writer -- that sounds redundant, but i mean that the author of the book has a care for language and the language used around rape is always charged and coded: the book opens with a lexicon listing the words rape, rapacious, rapport, ravish, ravishing, rapt, rapture, report... the overlap between the words and their origins is startling. her consideration of language, especially the telling of stories, runs throughout this book, starting with the rape itself during which, like scheherezade, she told stories to keep her rapist aware of her humanity and prolong her life. she also intersperses the bedtime stories that she tells, years later, to her young son. i cried several times while reading this -- and more often felt that i was being offered something special hearing this story.

[Leonard · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Louise Erdrich wrote, this book is written "with honesty about an act of evil." This book is also written with great literary skill making it more than a memoir of one woman's experience, but a meaningful statement about all people who have been victimized by evil. In an important paragraph the author quotes Judith Herman from her book "Trauma and Recovery:" "Restoration of the breach between the traumatized person and the community depends, first, upon public acknowledgement of the traumatic event, and second, upon some form of community action" (Page 58). One aspect of being victimized is clarified by the author in that such a traumtic experienced changes one forever. Recently I saw the movie "The Dry Land" about a Iraq War veteran suffering from PTSD. Like the soldier who was traumatized in war, the victim of rape and abuse is also permanently changed by the experience. No one can go back to the place they were at before being the target of abuse. The author makes that clear. We can be thankful that people like Ms. Francisco have the courage to write about the trauma they experienced. Without the courage to tell their story, healing is delayed and others are less likely to understand and have empathy. An excellent reading choice.

[loafingcactus · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the author does a really great job of crafting the narrative of her experience with information about the topic until near the end. She seems to try three different "now for the hopeful if not happy ending" endings, none of which really work. I can see the difficulty in finding an end that suits, but still, that could have been done better. If I could have voted for one, I would have voted for putting all the eggs in basket #3.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

To write this book required great strength and stamina, and there is never any question of the level of control needed and fulfilled. The weaving of Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen is a nice little layer. Brings up good questions but doesn't necessarily answer them.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of those books that's difficult to take, and that's what makes it extremely important. For everyone.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a remarkable memoir that discusses a horrendous, all too common crime that we are taught to keep silent about. Ms. Francisco's story is one of hope and coming full circle.

[Rita Kovtun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brimming memoir that takes you through Weaver's rocky, but rewarding journey of self-healing.

[René · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good writing. I'd be interested in reading anything else by her--her novels or poetry for example. Though I wasn't as interested in the sections rehashing the Snow Queen story.

[Ross Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most important books I've ever read. It will stick with me for a long time to come.

[Ashley Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book.