What do you think?
Rate this book
One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery
Winner of the 2015 BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2014
In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery both personal and global. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, then from a trauma center in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman’s book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere.
At once deeply intimate and terrifyingly universal, One Hour in Paris weaves together Freedman’s personal experience with the latest philosophical, neuroscientific, and psychological insights on what it means to live in a body that has been traumatized. Using her background as a philosopher, she looks at the history of psychological trauma and draws on recent theories of posttraumatic stress disorder and neuroplasticity to show how recovery from horrific experiences is possible. Through frank discussions of sex and intimacy, she explores the consequences of sexual violence for love and relationships, and she illustrates the steep personal cost of sexual violence and the obstacles faced by individual survivors in its aftermath. Freedman’s book is an urgent call to face this fundamental social problem head-on, arguing that we cannot continue to ignore the fact that sexual violence against women is rooted in gender inequalities that exist worldwide—and must be addressed.
One Hour in Paris is essential reading for survivors of sexual violence; an invaluable resource for therapists, mental health professionals, and family members and friends of victims; and a powerful book for anyone interested in issues of gender and social justice.
A Globe and Mail Top 100 Book of 2014
In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery both personal and global. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, then from a trauma center in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman’s book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere.
At once deeply intimate and terrifyingly universal, One Hour in Paris weaves together Freedman’s personal experience with the latest philosophical, neuroscientific, and psychological insights on what it means to live in a body that has been traumatized. Using her background as a philosopher, she looks at the history of psychological trauma and draws on recent theories of posttraumatic stress disorder and neuroplasticity to show how recovery from horrific experiences is possible. Through frank discussions of sex and intimacy, she explores the consequences of sexual violence for love and relationships, and she illustrates the steep personal cost of sexual violence and the obstacles faced by individual survivors in its aftermath. Freedman’s book is an urgent call to face this fundamental social problem head-on, arguing that we cannot continue to ignore the fact that sexual violence against women is rooted in gender inequalities that exist worldwide—and must be addressed.
One Hour in Paris is essential reading for survivors of sexual violence; an invaluable resource for therapists, mental health professionals, and family members and friends of victims; and a powerful book for anyone interested in issues of gender and social justice.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
11 people are currently reading
588 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
May 4, 2014
If there is any justice, Karyn L Freedman’s memoir, One Hour in Paris: A True Story of Rape and Recovery, will be widely celebrated one of the best Canadian nonfiction titles of 2014. In the book’s first chapter, Freedman, a philosopher and professor at the University of Guelph, tells the story of her own experience with rape at knifepoint in Paris while backpacking through Europe during the summer after her first year in university in 1990. In the rest of the book, she goes on to illustrate her own trauma in the aftermath, her futile attempts to move on from the experiences she suffers from PTSD, how through work with a therapist she learns to finally process what happened to her years after the fact, and eventually applies a philosophical framework to her understanding of her rape and being a rape survivor and to sexual violence against women in a wider and global context.
Freedman is an skilled writer, her prose measured and precise, she is a composer of beautiful sentences, and her mastery of the narrative—which weaves the personal, sociological and philosophical—is impressive. Though I can sense resistance from those readers for whom the book is not directly intended (“I wrote this book for you�, Freedman writes in her prologue to fellow rape-survivors.) So why else might you want to read this book?
To this point, I return to the book that has become my own personal touchstone in terms of memoir, Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. As I wrote of that book: “To be stirred then, to have our quiet disturbed. Perhaps this is why we should read this, or any book.� Like Wave, One Hour in Paris is a harrowing memoir, difficult to read but even harder to put down. The violence and rape are actually easier to read about than Freedman’s emotional fragility in the years that follow. She recounts what happened to her in a manner that is direct and factual; her intention is not that we relive her experiences—I don’t think she’d wish this on anybody. But more important to Freedman is that her readers understand what it is to live with these experiences, and also to understand the fascinating workings of our brains, how they process or fail to process traumatic events in our lives.
I started reading the book late in the evening and knew this wouldn’t be a casual reading experience. One can’t stop reading in the middle of the first chapter—there is a need to see the story through to the end, just so we know that it ends. The end of the chapter was devastating, but not entirely, mostly because Freedman’s narrative voice is so authoritative and compelling that I wanted to stick with her. And so I did, glad this dark book about the City of Light was so compact because I carried it in my purse the next day, holding it on one hand while used my other to push my baby in the swing.
And it was there in the playground where I read Freedman’s convincing arguments for speaking out about her rape. Her parents, who emerge along with Freedman herself (and her therapist) as this story’s heroes, wanted to shield her from any more pain or trauma after she came home from Paris. They made up a story about her unexpected homecoming, and were complicit in her attempts to leave the incident in her past, but Freedman comes to see that this decision was not only a misstep in her own recovery, but also how it perpetuates myths about sexual violence. The world, she tells us with two decades of perspective in addition to her own violent rape, is a dangerous place for women, as statistics demonstrate in places as close as our own neighbourhoods and as far away as the war-wracked Congo. But nobody talks about these experiences, suggesting that such incidents are rare, suggesting to those lucky enough to not know better that sexual violence is a crime of circumstance, that it’s something most of us should be able to sidestep. It’s why newspaper columnists suggest that if a young woman refrains from drinking to excess, she might not get raped, and if she is raped, she should have known better. Thereby perpetuating victim’s sense of her own complicity in the crime against her, ensuring her silence, and so the cycle continues.
What was most remarkable about One Hour in Paris was not just the good writing, or how Freedman offers access to her own experience (though this is something), but how much I learned, about sexual violence and the history of trauma and mental disorders, and the nature of these as well. Freedman comes to see her trauma as a chronic illness, the violent experience having changed the physiology of her brain, and so she much learn to manage her symptoms rather than hope to get beyond them. Even so, her own recovery would offer hope to other survivors that there is life beyond the trauma, that they certainly aren’t alone in what happened to them.
While I do think that while there may not be justice, Freedman’s book does have a chance of doing well with Canadian nonfiction prizes because of the way in which she takes her narrative beyond the personal to discuss sexual violence in general, and also internationally in the context of war crimes. And while I dislike this—the idea that a personal narrative is unworthy of note and one can’t write serious nonfiction without war being part of the mix—I appreciate that Freedman has broadened her approach not just to set up her story of one of grave importance, but because she can’t not do it. Her book avoids the inflammatory phrase “rape culture�, but is a document of its very point. She can’t help but tell her story in a broad context because sexual violence is everywhere, insidious and pervasive all around the world, and until the problem is stated plain, stared in the face as Freedman does, things are never going to be any different.
Freedman is an skilled writer, her prose measured and precise, she is a composer of beautiful sentences, and her mastery of the narrative—which weaves the personal, sociological and philosophical—is impressive. Though I can sense resistance from those readers for whom the book is not directly intended (“I wrote this book for you�, Freedman writes in her prologue to fellow rape-survivors.) So why else might you want to read this book?
To this point, I return to the book that has become my own personal touchstone in terms of memoir, Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. As I wrote of that book: “To be stirred then, to have our quiet disturbed. Perhaps this is why we should read this, or any book.� Like Wave, One Hour in Paris is a harrowing memoir, difficult to read but even harder to put down. The violence and rape are actually easier to read about than Freedman’s emotional fragility in the years that follow. She recounts what happened to her in a manner that is direct and factual; her intention is not that we relive her experiences—I don’t think she’d wish this on anybody. But more important to Freedman is that her readers understand what it is to live with these experiences, and also to understand the fascinating workings of our brains, how they process or fail to process traumatic events in our lives.
I started reading the book late in the evening and knew this wouldn’t be a casual reading experience. One can’t stop reading in the middle of the first chapter—there is a need to see the story through to the end, just so we know that it ends. The end of the chapter was devastating, but not entirely, mostly because Freedman’s narrative voice is so authoritative and compelling that I wanted to stick with her. And so I did, glad this dark book about the City of Light was so compact because I carried it in my purse the next day, holding it on one hand while used my other to push my baby in the swing.
And it was there in the playground where I read Freedman’s convincing arguments for speaking out about her rape. Her parents, who emerge along with Freedman herself (and her therapist) as this story’s heroes, wanted to shield her from any more pain or trauma after she came home from Paris. They made up a story about her unexpected homecoming, and were complicit in her attempts to leave the incident in her past, but Freedman comes to see that this decision was not only a misstep in her own recovery, but also how it perpetuates myths about sexual violence. The world, she tells us with two decades of perspective in addition to her own violent rape, is a dangerous place for women, as statistics demonstrate in places as close as our own neighbourhoods and as far away as the war-wracked Congo. But nobody talks about these experiences, suggesting that such incidents are rare, suggesting to those lucky enough to not know better that sexual violence is a crime of circumstance, that it’s something most of us should be able to sidestep. It’s why newspaper columnists suggest that if a young woman refrains from drinking to excess, she might not get raped, and if she is raped, she should have known better. Thereby perpetuating victim’s sense of her own complicity in the crime against her, ensuring her silence, and so the cycle continues.
What was most remarkable about One Hour in Paris was not just the good writing, or how Freedman offers access to her own experience (though this is something), but how much I learned, about sexual violence and the history of trauma and mental disorders, and the nature of these as well. Freedman comes to see her trauma as a chronic illness, the violent experience having changed the physiology of her brain, and so she much learn to manage her symptoms rather than hope to get beyond them. Even so, her own recovery would offer hope to other survivors that there is life beyond the trauma, that they certainly aren’t alone in what happened to them.
While I do think that while there may not be justice, Freedman’s book does have a chance of doing well with Canadian nonfiction prizes because of the way in which she takes her narrative beyond the personal to discuss sexual violence in general, and also internationally in the context of war crimes. And while I dislike this—the idea that a personal narrative is unworthy of note and one can’t write serious nonfiction without war being part of the mix—I appreciate that Freedman has broadened her approach not just to set up her story of one of grave importance, but because she can’t not do it. Her book avoids the inflammatory phrase “rape culture�, but is a document of its very point. She can’t help but tell her story in a broad context because sexual violence is everywhere, insidious and pervasive all around the world, and until the problem is stated plain, stared in the face as Freedman does, things are never going to be any different.
July 9, 2021
One Hour in Paris is two books at once: the author's memoir of her rape while traveling in Paris and a more general look at trauma and recovery. There seem to be a lot of these types of books nowadays, where the author uses her own experiences as a jumping-off point to talk about larger issues in a more general way. I found the personal sections absorbing, vivid, and very well written; the more general sections were a bit dry and textbook-like. But overall it was a good reading experience, and I have no doubt this book would be helpful and informative to many.
May 8, 2014
I firmly believe that Karyn's book will do for rape victims what Magical Thinking did for widowhood--it seems like an odd comparison to make. But this is such an important book, written so beautifully, and coherently, about a subject that's impossible to talk about for so many reasons, all of them valid. I don't know a single woman who hasn't felt threatened, or been sexually compromised--of course, not to the harrowing, life-threatening, tragic extreme of Freedman's experience--and this book is a rallying cry for women to stand up and change the narrative. Once you start this book you will simply not put it down.
January 16, 2017
If some books feel shallow and lacking focus, this is not one of those.
I am astounded at the depth of experience and understanding that the author packed into 186 pages. I am thankful for how she shared her twenty year path following one hour of sexual violence. This is a brutally honest book that breathes context into a life of overcoming.
I am astounded at the depth of experience and understanding that the author packed into 186 pages. I am thankful for how she shared her twenty year path following one hour of sexual violence. This is a brutally honest book that breathes context into a life of overcoming.
March 26, 2017
4.5 stars. "...I am reminded that however much work I do, healing from a traumatic experience is never complete. This is one of the most significant facts about psychological trauma. It is permanent." That speaks volumes. Sharing this was courageous and it has left me with a number of things to think about.
September 24, 2014
**I received this book through the first reads program.
This is a very tough book to read. Tough, but essential. It tells the true story of the author's rape in Paris during a trip in Europe and, I must warn you, it is quite detailed. Nonetheless, this is not about a victim, but about a survivor, about how she got through life and learned to cope with panic attacks, nightmares and dreadful memories of an awful man. I really got into the story, I was outraged and troubled by this narrative and I really do admire Freedman's guts to publish and share her very own traumatic experience with thousands of readers.
This is a book that everyone should read, not because it is amazingly written or revolutionary in any way, but because it deals with a very important matter. Rape is unacceptable under any circumstance and this biography supports that claim perfectly. If it can make some people think more about their actions and how they can impact other's lives, then its goal will be more than accomplished.
This is a very tough book to read. Tough, but essential. It tells the true story of the author's rape in Paris during a trip in Europe and, I must warn you, it is quite detailed. Nonetheless, this is not about a victim, but about a survivor, about how she got through life and learned to cope with panic attacks, nightmares and dreadful memories of an awful man. I really got into the story, I was outraged and troubled by this narrative and I really do admire Freedman's guts to publish and share her very own traumatic experience with thousands of readers.
This is a book that everyone should read, not because it is amazingly written or revolutionary in any way, but because it deals with a very important matter. Rape is unacceptable under any circumstance and this biography supports that claim perfectly. If it can make some people think more about their actions and how they can impact other's lives, then its goal will be more than accomplished.
July 22, 2017
I feel profound sadness about what Ms. Freedman endured and laud her efforts at recovery from extreme trauma. Having said that, however, I did not find the book about her experience well written. The subtleties of the aftermath of trauma were not well articulated, and there is a great deal of therapeutic jargon. Please understand that I do not want to belittle the author's desire to convey her experience and to encourage others who have been raped, but I think the book would have benefited greatly from a better edit. Possibly the book could have been written more skillfully with a co-writer. Jessica Stern's memoir is far more powerful and immediate.
December 27, 2016
Even taking into account the dark content of this book, and the horrifying experience of the author, I feel privileged to have read it. One Hour in Paris is frank account of one woman's rape and recovery, and an important reminder that sexual assault is insidious and far more common than we would believe. She tackles the topic from a personal level, and infuses it with knowledge and analysis of the social structures that all rape to continue, how PTSD and trauma emerge, and the universality present in rape experiences across cultures and borders.
Not a light read, but very relevant and important. I would encourage anyone who cares about this topic to consider reading it.
Not a light read, but very relevant and important. I would encourage anyone who cares about this topic to consider reading it.
May 22, 2014
An important memoir for anyone interested in social justice and human rights.
July 26, 2024
This book is just wow. It's a very personal take of a rape survivor about her struggles and to come to understand and reconcile herself with her experience.
It's divided in five parts. Three of them (1, 2 and 5) delve on her experience on a very personal and subjective level, while the other two are more about a more understanding the bigger context of these type of experiences.
It's very informative both on the phenomenological experience and the data on trauma and sexual assaults. Freedman speaks with authority, but still leaves space for different experiences than hers. Trauma is universal yet at the same time is extremely personal. Her account on how her PTSD is a chronic disease of which she manages the symptoms sadden me a little bit. I guess a part of me wanted her to say "it's all behind now", silly me. In any case, recognising trauma as an ongoing situation allows the person to adjust the necessary things to make the flare up of symptoms more bearable. There's always hope and it is possible to come back after anything...
It's divided in five parts. Three of them (1, 2 and 5) delve on her experience on a very personal and subjective level, while the other two are more about a more understanding the bigger context of these type of experiences.
It's very informative both on the phenomenological experience and the data on trauma and sexual assaults. Freedman speaks with authority, but still leaves space for different experiences than hers. Trauma is universal yet at the same time is extremely personal. Her account on how her PTSD is a chronic disease of which she manages the symptoms sadden me a little bit. I guess a part of me wanted her to say "it's all behind now", silly me. In any case, recognising trauma as an ongoing situation allows the person to adjust the necessary things to make the flare up of symptoms more bearable. There's always hope and it is possible to come back after anything...
February 15, 2017
What an important book that needed to be written. So many of us go through trauma and we don't/can't talk about it. No one tells you how to cope or try to heal. We just do the best we can on our own, downplaying the effects on our physical and mental health. I was a bit shocked to see how much my struggles mirror the authors and I have had admit to myself that I am still struggling, I am not okay, and that maybe I too could benefit from help. I am very grateful this was chosen as a Canada Reads longlist contender so that it got the publicity to find it's way into my hands and the hands of others.
December 26, 2018
Very well articulated, descriptive and moving exploration.
May 11, 2018
This book was very challenging for me to read as the author and I have a somewhat shared experience; hers was in Paris, mine was elsewhere. I applaud Karyn Freedman for putting herself out there like this; thank you for writing this. It makes life a little easier knowing that I'm not the only survivor out there, and not the only one that has battled the many faced beast known as PTSD.
March 8, 2017
Insightful and moving story told by Karyn Freedman.
August 30, 2014
This was a difficult book to read.
It is the true story of Karyn Freedman rape at knifepoint in Paris during a summer of backpacking through Europe. But it's more than that - it's the story of myriad of ways her life was affected by this event and the story of her recovery, which is still in ways incomplete.
Freedman is a philosophy professor at the University of Guelph and she does an amazing job at looking at her experiences as well as those of women in all parts of the world.
Some quotes that really resonated with me...
"Keeping our rape stories secret lowers the decibel level on the magnitude of the problem and perpetuates the idea that rape happens somewhere else, to someone else."
"It is often said that rape is about power and not sex but this can be a misleading characterization....But for the survivor rape is all about sex. It is about having the most private parts of your bady used sexually, violently, against your will.....this experience insinuated itself into my sex life, in perpetuity, it seems, shadowing every intimate physical gesture, a persistent reminder that my body is not entirely my own."
"As feminists have been arguing for decades, while violence against women may take different forms and range in severity, it persists as part of a system of oppression and gender discrimination that is rooted in the structural inequalities between men and women."
I'll be thinking of this book for a long time to come.
September 13, 2014
I found this book heartbreaking, profound and educational.
As a man, rape is not something that I knew too much about. I mean I know what rape is but I wasn't truly aware of the physical and psychological impact that it can on its victims.
In some ways it made me ashamed to be a male knowing of what males can actually be capable and knowing that we can ruin a woman's life for a lifetime by performing a extremely terrible act of control that can only take few minutes.
It showed me in various ways that a victim is a victim not just of the act but in many ways sees themselves as being responsible for the act, did they dress inappropriately, act or smile in a leading way etc.
No victim is ever responsible for this horrific act. They should never blame themselves but as an outsider like I am, it is easier said than done.
Karyn shows her strength, intelligence, and sense of purpose in this book.
I thank and applaud Karyn for her courage to tell her story and to teach more about this crime and its true impact on its victims.
As a man, rape is not something that I knew too much about. I mean I know what rape is but I wasn't truly aware of the physical and psychological impact that it can on its victims.
In some ways it made me ashamed to be a male knowing of what males can actually be capable and knowing that we can ruin a woman's life for a lifetime by performing a extremely terrible act of control that can only take few minutes.
It showed me in various ways that a victim is a victim not just of the act but in many ways sees themselves as being responsible for the act, did they dress inappropriately, act or smile in a leading way etc.
No victim is ever responsible for this horrific act. They should never blame themselves but as an outsider like I am, it is easier said than done.
Karyn shows her strength, intelligence, and sense of purpose in this book.
I thank and applaud Karyn for her courage to tell her story and to teach more about this crime and its true impact on its victims.
March 3, 2015
An excellent, chilling and wonderfully researched book that blends together the personal with the societal. In 1990, Karyn Freeman was raped in an apartment in Paris. That hour changed her life. In this book, she talks about the lasting effects of the rape and sorts through post traumatic stress disorder, and her own recovery. There's a lot of information about the larger impacts of trauma and how they can affect a person's body.
I'm not writing a lot about this here because I plan to write a column about this book. However, I will say that this is a very meaningful and important book and I'm really glad I read it. It did get a bit clinical at times, which makes sense because the author is a philosopher. (I didn't really mind this, since I am the daughter of two social workers and I've heard a lot of clinical talk in my life.)
I hope lots of people read this book and I think it's incredibly relevant considering some of the recent events concerning sexual violence in Canada.
I'm not writing a lot about this here because I plan to write a column about this book. However, I will say that this is a very meaningful and important book and I'm really glad I read it. It did get a bit clinical at times, which makes sense because the author is a philosopher. (I didn't really mind this, since I am the daughter of two social workers and I've heard a lot of clinical talk in my life.)
I hope lots of people read this book and I think it's incredibly relevant considering some of the recent events concerning sexual violence in Canada.
December 17, 2014
In this autobiographical account of a rape, the author rightfully points out that rape victims, as hard as it is, have to talk about what happened to them to raise awareness and make it possible to put a stop to rape. Of course the same is true for any kind of abuse or mistreatment. Freedman wisely uses her training in philosophy to communicate the post rape recovery attempt, and also reminds us that there really is no recovery. Rape changes a person and that change is permanent. That also, is true for any kind of abuse and mistreatment. "Closure" is a dirty word because it doesn't really exist. She writes a lot about PTSD and the steps she took to help her cope with the experience. Any kind of violence has a debilitating experience on those so victimized and Freedman is not an exception, but she skillfully tells us what happened and we journey along with her in the recovery process which, unlike this excellent and illumnating book, is ongoing.
September 21, 2014
As Reviewed by University of Chicago Press:
In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery both personal and global. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, then from a trauma center in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman’s book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere.
In this powerful memoir, philosopher Karyn L. Freedman travels back to a Paris night in 1990 when she was twenty-two and, in one violent hour, her life was changed forever by a brutal rape. One Hour in Paris takes the reader on a harrowing yet inspirational journey through suffering and recovery both personal and global. We follow Freedman from an apartment in Paris to a French courtroom, then from a trauma center in Toronto to a rape clinic in Africa. At a time when as many as one in three women in the world have been victims of sexual assault and when many women are still ashamed to come forward, Freedman’s book is a moving and essential look at how survivors cope and persevere.
April 18, 2019
It's definitely a compelling memoire that gives you an essential look at how survivors of sexual assault cope and persevere.
The devastating truth about rape is not simply confined to one terrible moment but it shapes an entire lifetime.
As a woman and mother to young girls, it was a sensitive read for me. I'm satisfied that I read it, but I did not like it. However, with that being said, I'll simply add that the author showed great courage in being able to share her story. She was brave to write about her ordeal and the story does deserve to be read by the public.
Wouldn't it be wonderful though if such books never had to be written in the first place?!?
The devastating truth about rape is not simply confined to one terrible moment but it shapes an entire lifetime.
As a woman and mother to young girls, it was a sensitive read for me. I'm satisfied that I read it, but I did not like it. However, with that being said, I'll simply add that the author showed great courage in being able to share her story. She was brave to write about her ordeal and the story does deserve to be read by the public.
Wouldn't it be wonderful though if such books never had to be written in the first place?!?
January 3, 2017
This book is on the long list for Canada Reads this year, and I hope it makes the short list! It is the kind of book that deserves to be widely read. I have worked with women with PTSD before, and this book is a compelling personal story as well as an intelligent and thoughtful survey of research and trends in sexual violence and PTSD. It makes you think about just how pervasive the problem is, and how little is being done about it.
May 4, 2014
This was very heavy. It was also enlightening. I liked that it was written by a philosophy professor. Unique writing and perspective.
August 23, 2023
This book is a personal and detailed look at rape, as experienced by Karyn Freedman.
She was raped August 1 1990 in Paris, France. At the time, she was a 22 year-old free-spirited young adult, exploring Europe by herself and with friends she connected with along the way. That evening, she arrived at the Parisian apartment her boyfriend was staying at. He had a dinner engagement so she found herself alone with another house-guest there, Robert Dinges. Robert raped her when she was alone with him. They left the apartment, with Robert holding a hidden knife to her back. When trying to get through the building's main doors, she was able to separate herself from him. She screamed. Robert ran.
From there, she was greatly aided by her loving and caring parents, who helped her in the immediate moments after she reported the rape to the Paris police. Though she was in Paris, France, and her parents were in Winnipeg, Canada, they were able to coordinate a response with the Canadian Embassy that enabled Karyn to quickly return home.
Back in Canada, she attempted to return to the academic life but she remained haunted. The rape left her broken and inhibited. On the outside, she was coping and managing, but inside she was churning with shame and mental trauma. In the immediate years after her rape she found herself prone to dark and violent thoughts. Sex was forever altered for her, though over the years she found she could manage with adjustments and communication.
Ten years after the rape, frustrated by her state of mind, she decided to undergo psychotherapy. Her therapist, Anique Rosenbaum, started their work clinically, analytically. Karyn relived the events as if to a journalist. Then the therapy went deeper, allowing Karyn to relive the event from the safety of her therapist's office. This allowed Karyn to vocalize and act out as she had not that fateful evening. There was more strenuous work of this nature and through it all she at last began to heal "in fits and starts."
Karyn visited Africa as part of her academic work, and there she met women who were raped as a matter of course. The laws and customs in Africa that allow men to rape with impunity are also present in variations in many other countries. Marital rape exemptions were in the United States up until 1976! The shame that Karyn and other women felt makes rape look like a "personal problem". It isn't. For the author, rape is "an epidemic faced by women and children worldwide", and "the manifestation of age-old structural inequalities which persist between men and women."
I am persuaded by her views. This was an incredible book to read and I'm grateful to know her story.
She was raped August 1 1990 in Paris, France. At the time, she was a 22 year-old free-spirited young adult, exploring Europe by herself and with friends she connected with along the way. That evening, she arrived at the Parisian apartment her boyfriend was staying at. He had a dinner engagement so she found herself alone with another house-guest there, Robert Dinges. Robert raped her when she was alone with him. They left the apartment, with Robert holding a hidden knife to her back. When trying to get through the building's main doors, she was able to separate herself from him. She screamed. Robert ran.
From there, she was greatly aided by her loving and caring parents, who helped her in the immediate moments after she reported the rape to the Paris police. Though she was in Paris, France, and her parents were in Winnipeg, Canada, they were able to coordinate a response with the Canadian Embassy that enabled Karyn to quickly return home.
Back in Canada, she attempted to return to the academic life but she remained haunted. The rape left her broken and inhibited. On the outside, she was coping and managing, but inside she was churning with shame and mental trauma. In the immediate years after her rape she found herself prone to dark and violent thoughts. Sex was forever altered for her, though over the years she found she could manage with adjustments and communication.
Ten years after the rape, frustrated by her state of mind, she decided to undergo psychotherapy. Her therapist, Anique Rosenbaum, started their work clinically, analytically. Karyn relived the events as if to a journalist. Then the therapy went deeper, allowing Karyn to relive the event from the safety of her therapist's office. This allowed Karyn to vocalize and act out as she had not that fateful evening. There was more strenuous work of this nature and through it all she at last began to heal "in fits and starts."
Karyn visited Africa as part of her academic work, and there she met women who were raped as a matter of course. The laws and customs in Africa that allow men to rape with impunity are also present in variations in many other countries. Marital rape exemptions were in the United States up until 1976! The shame that Karyn and other women felt makes rape look like a "personal problem". It isn't. For the author, rape is "an epidemic faced by women and children worldwide", and "the manifestation of age-old structural inequalities which persist between men and women."
I am persuaded by her views. This was an incredible book to read and I'm grateful to know her story.
June 14, 2023
It feels like a private tour into a home that was ransacked, destroyed in the past, but has been carefully built again with care and support. This book feels like a tree that fell in the overnight storm, but has been supported enough to be built again. The fencing, the fertilizers, the careful therapeutic work, study and support is clear throughout. This piece fuses recent developments in almost every discipline that intersects with trauma studies with lived experience. Not only stories of what happened, but several revisits to memory, the spaces that held the memory, and all the possible documents of the lived experience. It dissects the memory, the emotional and behavioral responses for over 20 years to reach where this book was possible. It is an excellent piece for who is beginning into trauma studies, interested in lived experiences, or trying to get a hold of the interdisciplinary picture of trauma. The author quite accurately locates the need to hold trauma in the body, and her body becomes the object of experience of trauma, as well as the instrument to dissect it, the voice to reflect and the table to hold it while she keeps working on her experience throughout.
In the beginning, it almost feels unethical, going through graphic details of the author's experience of rape. It is a very very very tough read, if you are reading alone and have any history of sexual abuse. But, as the author herself writes in the prologue,
"But if I am sure of anything it is that there are innumerable other survivors out there whose experiences mirror mine. If you are one of these people then you might find certain parts of what follows triggering, in particular the first chapter, but please know this: I wrote this book for you."
She writes it for all of us. Reading it is worth it. Have someone by your side if need be, while you read.
If she is reading it at any point of time, I am proud to be living in the same time as hers. Proud of her work!
In the beginning, it almost feels unethical, going through graphic details of the author's experience of rape. It is a very very very tough read, if you are reading alone and have any history of sexual abuse. But, as the author herself writes in the prologue,
"But if I am sure of anything it is that there are innumerable other survivors out there whose experiences mirror mine. If you are one of these people then you might find certain parts of what follows triggering, in particular the first chapter, but please know this: I wrote this book for you."
She writes it for all of us. Reading it is worth it. Have someone by your side if need be, while you read.
If she is reading it at any point of time, I am proud to be living in the same time as hers. Proud of her work!
January 27, 2019
After reading of Freedman's horrific rape, I wondered if I'd had it easier. Unconscious during my drug-rape, I wasn't forced, on threat of death, to follow my rapist's cruel instructions. Freedman is very clear that she received tremendous and on-going financial and emotional support from a loving family to undergo the extensive private therapy of her choice which she believes accomplishes the essential re-wiring of the body's trauma-damaged circuitry. As a working single mother of two children, without a supportive family, the free therapy that restored me was my valued identity as a mother, the adoption of a disciplined routine including diet and exercise, participating in two brilliant support groups, volunteering, honing my creative talents, and borrowing great books from the library on a forever basis. This memoir is about Freedman's uniquely personal experience of healing and I thank her for it.
Eleanor Cowan, Author of :
Eleanor Cowan, Author of :
October 30, 2018
Caused me to rethink my attack in 1979. I never felt responsible. And, probably because I fought off my attacker, and the way the emergency responders (police, fire fighters and EMTs) treated me (like a sort of hero), I've always felt brave and strong and totally capable. But the event took away my trust, my innocence. I am most always in a state of hyper-awareness. It is very hard for me to relax and trust. I feel totally responsible for my safety and my well being and mostly responsible for anyone I care about. It's very hard for me to let others help me. I never really thought of this as being a result of a man crawling in my window in the middle of the night and jumping on top of me in the bed. Now it sounds absurd that I didn't realize this.
August 23, 2017
This book really lost the run of itself in the second half; the author, I think, tried to fit too many BIG topics into one novel. Recounting a personal story of sexual violence and trying to sum up the entire problem with how women are treated in Africa are two very different topics and should be treated as such. I was really not impressed with how the author essentially stated that *only* women are raped and *only* men commit these crimes, that is just false. I also found that it got incredibly repetitive towards the end.
March 22, 2018
Kathryn’s descriptions are dead on and very much emotionally relatable to other survivors.
July 7, 2019
a very painful book to read.
October 2, 2019
Raw, heartbreaking and enlightening. I’m going to read this again so I can update my reviews.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 56 reviews
Can't find what you're looking for?
Get help and learn more about the design.