Know My Name: A Memoir

“What’s really remarkable to me about Know My Name is the depth of self-interrogation that Chanel Miller does throughout this book. There is a lot of questioning, because she is forced to do it. She’s forced to do it because of the questions that she is getting by Brock Turner’s defense lawyers, who are trying to cast aspersions on her. They’re trying to reframe her as an illegitimate person. They’re trying to reframe her as a liar. They’re trying to reframe her as part of a larger culture, that says that a woman who has been sexually assaulted was ‘asking for it’ in some way. She realizes that there are so many attempts to reframe her as a person that it is clear that she has had to work very, very hard emotionally, not just to understand her own feelings and emotions and experiences, but to find a way to articulate them that is clear.” Read more...

The Best of Memoir: the 2020 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist

Mark Athitakis