Strong At The Heart

Earlier this summer a reader in a small cattle town in a rural Western state wrote a letter on a typewriter and mailed it to my publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux in New York. The letter went on to my editor, Melanie Kroupa, in Boston. She faxed it to me in northwestern California.

Here, with the writer’s permission and with identifying details taken out, is her letter:

“I just read Carolyn Lehman’s wonderful book, Strong at the Heart: How It Feels to Heal from Sexual Abuse. I love this book and I found it to be very helpful. I was sexually abused some of my childhood years and when I was 14. I go to the library often and look for books on this subject. There aren’t many, not at my library. When I found this book, at first, I was afraid to read it. I read it with caution, because I didn’t know what to expect. I read the whole book in an hour. I even had to stop and wipe away tears every now and then. This book, the people who wrote their stories…they’ve inspired me to pick up the shattered pieces of my life and move on. It will be a long healing process. This book has helped tremendously.”

When I wrote asking her permission to quote her on this site, she responded in part:

“Please know how grateful I am that you put such a book together–it’s an incredible feeling, knowing that I’m not alone. ”

And isn’t that the heart of it? That feeling of isolation is the worst. Yet we are really not alone at all. We are surrounded by other survivors of sexual abuse. It’s the stigma of abuse that prevents us from connecting with and supporting each other. I’m so glad this reader found an opening at her public library and role models for her own healing.

She also said, “I was amazed that an author wrote to me! A famous person!” (Well, hardly famous.) Authors and editors and publishers are human beings. Her letter let a lot of people involved in the publication of Strong at the Heart know the impact of their choice to publish this book.

She’s right, too, it can be hard to find good resources. Letters like hers give support to those with the courage to publish books that are needed, not just potential blockbusters. I wish librarians and booksellers could hear from readers like her, too.

Here are some of my favorite books and films about healing from sexual abuse.

I’m still grinning from a lovely three day retreat that my sister and I took last week. She lives in another state, so we met in the Portland airport and drove together to Breitenbush Hot Springs. We hiked in the luscious hills, relaxed in the hot springs, got massages, did yoga, ate quantities of food that other people prepared for us, and had plenty of time to talk and read and enjoy each others’ company.

My sister is an amazing and accomplished woman. Her professional work benefits farm workers and their children, she is also a musician, and she raised two of my favorite people in the world–my nieces.

Near the end of our restorative time together it hit me: this moment–this happiness and peace and richness in our lives–was unimaginable when we were children in a dysfunctional and destructive nuclear family. We really have come a long, long way. I wished I could reach back in time and tell those two little girls, “Some day this will be yours!”

our hero

Recently I’ve been in contact with a second cousin of ours. She told me a family story I had never heard before.

In the 1930’s our great aunt found out that her daughter had been molested by a relative. Despite her own disability, poverty, and the attitudes of the era, she hired a lawyer, pursued the case, and sent the offender to jail.

We’d never even know this about her! My sis and I took one evening of our vacation to celebrate and commemorate this great aunt, who we have always remembered fondly as a loving and kind presence when we were young.  What a hero for us both!

Here’s a young adult book to look for. SAFE, by Susan Shaw, won’t be out until October, but I’m reading it now in publisher’s galleys for a book review.

There is no mystery about what happened. Walking home on the last day of 7th grade, Tracy is abducted by an older teen, raped, and left for dead. We know it happened, so does she. The story takes place over that awful summer, the aftermath, while she struggles to find enough security in her life so that she can begin to deal with the reality of the assault.

At last, a novel that really focuses on healing. What I like about this book is that Tracy is no pitiful victim. Even as she goes through a period of agraphobia and isolation, she is finding ways to help herself, figuring out how to live after overwhelming trauma and loss.

She has a lot to draw on, a kind father, the memory of a loving mother, good friends who wait in the wings for her “return.” But in the depths of her post trauma reaction she also discovers strength within herself. She draws on the power of music and her own creativity long before she is ready for talk therapy and all that comes with it.
The violence is all off stage. Tracy’s feelings are front and center. Her growth is realistic and hopeful. This is a good book.

Here’s something you might want to check out. A young filmmaker is producing a feature film that examines male experience of sexual abuse within the orthodox Jewish community.

I haven’t seen the film but have visited the website for Narrow Bridge http://www.narrowbridgefilm.com/. From his description and the website itself, the film appears to be about a religious young man in a new relationship who must come to terms with abuse by a trusted man in his childhood.

Have you seen the new young adult novel, Touching Snow, by M. Sindy Felin? It’s just been published by Atheneum.

The story is bluntly told through the eyes of a teenaged Haitian American girl, Karina, who chronicles her family’s suffering under her despotic stepfather. What I found particularly interesting was the examination of how culture and immigrant status play out in the lives of all the family members.

There’s also a very interesting side story that shows the young girls in the neighborhood navigating around–and sometimes making use of–the neighborhood pedophile who has a car.

Felin explores some very tricky areas. My only cavil is that the abuse is stopped when the abuser is murdered by his victims. Oh, yes, it is satisfying on an emotional level. (And this is not a spoiler. The book begins with the statement, “The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone.”) But you know that family is not really going to be better off in the long run.

Sigh. Sometimes there are no easy answers.

It’s been way too long since I posted here. What has absorbed me is my involvement in digital storytelling. This began as an invitation a year ago from Amy Hill of Silence Speaks to participate in a digital storytelling workshop.

Digital Storytelling gives ordinary people the skills to make short, personal QuickTime/DVD movies about their experience. What I find fascinating is seeing what people do when they have the power to communicate their inmost experience in video format without the mediation of editors, journalists, filmmakers, etc. The stories are incredibly moving and often reveal a great deal that gets lost in slicker productions.

Amy’s site, Silence Speaks, contains the stories of men and women, boys and girls, who are overcoming sexual, physical and emotional violence in their lives. The stories speak about facing racism, making it through foster care, being abandoned by family after reporting abuse. It’s heavy stuff, but also very inspiring. You might want to check it out.

home town

What I’ve done with it this spring is not abuse related. Working with a grassroots women’s health organization, another writer and I developed a program for cancer patients to help them tell their stories. We were fortunate in being granted the funds to bring the Center for Digital Storytelling to our small town for a three day workshop so that the participants could turn their written scripts into 3 minute movies.

If/when the stories go up on line, I’ll post a link for you here.

And, yes, what got me involved was my own cancer experience. I’m healthy now and very happy about it.

I just heard from Mindy, one of the Cybils organizers, about a new interactive book site for children’s and young adult literature.

And Strong at the Heart has its own page there.

At the Tandem Library Books site you can bring up four separate lists of recommended book in Texas state reading programs. (Strong at the Heart is on the Tayshas list for high school students.) Scroll down the column of book jackets and click to open a graphic that looks like a book with “pages” you can turn for a book description, author bio, and list of related books.

There’s even a way to rate the books you’ve read.

The books listed for the Tayshas include five I’ve written about on this blog and/or presented at literature conferences. Look for Sold by Patricia McCormick, Inexcusable by Chris Lynch, and Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin.

This is a fine way to learn about the latest and best books. And the different lists cover books for all ages.