Writing The Survivor

Writing the Survivor: The Rape Novel in Late Twentieth-Century American Fiction identifies a new genre of American fiction, the rape novel, that recenters narratives of sexual violence on the survivors of violence and abuse, rather than the perpetrators. The rape novel arose during the women’s liberation movement as women writers collectively challenged the traditional erasure of female subjectivity and agency found in earlier representations of sexual violence in American fiction. The rape novel not only foregrounds survivors and their stories in a textual centering that affirms their dignity and self-worth, but also develops new narratological strategies for portraying violent, disturbing subject matter. In bringing together many key women’s texts of the last decades of the 20th century, the rape novel demonstrates the centrality of sexual assault to women’s fiction of this era. The rape novels of the 21st century continue the political activism inherent in the genre—educating readers, offering community to survivors, and encouraging social activism—as the stories of male survivors are increasingly told. A radical reconsideration of late twentieth-century American novels, Writing the Survivor underscores the importance of women’s activism upon the novel’s form and content and reveals the portrayal of rape as rape to be an interethnic imperative.

This volume identifies a new genre of American fiction, the rape novel, that recentres narratives of sexual violence on the survivors of violence and abuse, rather than the perpetrators. The rape novel arose during the women's liberation movement as women writers collectively challenged the traditional erasure of female subjectivity and agency found in earlier representations of sexual violence in American fiction. The rape novel not only foregrounds survivors and their stories in a textual centering that affirms their dignity and self-worth, but also develops new narratological strategies for portraying violent, disturbing subject matter. In bringing together many key women's texts of the last decades of the 20th century, the rape novel demonstrates the centrality of sexual assault to women's fiction of this era.

By most accounts, Gidon Lev, born in 1935 in former Czechoslovakia, is an ordinary man - except for the fact that of the approximately 15,000 children who were imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camp of Terezin, only an estimated 92 survived. Gidon is one of those children. The True Adventures of Gidon Lev is the story of a charming, playful octogenarian Holocaust survivor, a Californian thirty years his junior and the writing of a book about a very long and storied life. With humor, humanity, and compassion, the story of Gidon Lev offers insights into carrying on despite a painful past, a primer on Jewish and Israeli history, and observations of both the ethos of the modern state of Israel and its conflict today and the opportunities that disaster can create. Weaving Gidon's valuable first-person recollections together with the cultural and historical backstory of time and place, Julie Gray invites readers inside the process of mining memories for truths and history for lessons.

LEFT / WRITE // HOOK shows that sexual abuse survivors are everywhere, that trauma lives in the body, and it needs to be expressed. "By no choice of their own, survivors of childhood sexual abuse spend the entirety of their lives 'in the ring', fighting. Left / Write // Hook offers visceral insight into survivors' fierce, compelling and ultimately triumphant stories" --. Dr Joy Townsend, Learning Consent "Donna Lyon has the ability to get women to open up and reveal all, and in the process begin the journey to healing. Boxing is a violent sport, but projects like Left / Write // Hook take the violence out of it, so that it becomes therapeutic and gives you power". --Tommy Hopkins, Fitlife Boxing Club, Melbourne Australia. Fueled with the voices and lived experiences of adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, whose lives and work have been positively impacted by the combination of writing and boxing, readers will experience: * a profound understanding of the complexity and depth of trauma through the lived experiences of survivors * insights into the tenacious long-term impacts of abuse and trauma on the mind, body, and spirit * personalised and collective accounts of how trauma manifests in the experiences of survivors and their sense of self * hope and courage as to the resilience and strength of survivors who live with the daily effects of their trauma * new insight into how the combination of physical, mental, and creative programs of expression are vital to healing * dozens of powerful writing prompts that unearth hidden feelings, thoughts, and beliefs to recover your true self. Learn more at: www.leftwritehook.com From Loving Healing Press www.LHPress.com

A foreword by former soldier and memoirist Brian Turner, author of My Life as a Foreign Country, and an afterword by military wife and memoirist Angela Ricketts, author of No Man's War: Irreverent Confessions of an Infantry Wife, bookend the volume.

In this post-apocalyptic novel from Newbery Medal–winning author Robert C. O’Brien, a teen girl struggling to survive in the wake of unimaginable disaster comes across another survivor. Ann Burden is sixteen years old and completely alone. The world as she once knew it is gone, ravaged by a nuclear war that has taken everyone from her. For the past year, she has lived in a remote valley with no evidence of any other survivors. But the smoke from a distant campfire shatters Ann’s solitude. Someone else is still alive and making his way toward the valley. Who is this man? What does he want? Can he be trusted? Both excited and terrified, Ann soon realizes there may be worse things than being the last person on Earth.

At 22, Leslie Morgan Steiner seemed to have it all: a Harvard diploma, a glamorous job at Seventeen magazine, a downtown New York City apartment. Plus a handsome, funny, street-smart boyfriend who adored her. But behind her façade of success, this golden girl hid a dark secret. She'd made a mistake shared by millions: she fell in love with the wrong person. At first Leslie and Conor seemed as perfect together as their fairy-tale wedding. Then came the fights she tried to ignore: he pushed her down the stairs of the house they bought together, poured coffee grinds over her hair as she dressed for a critical job interview, choked her during an argument, and threatened her with a gun. Several times, he came close to making good on his threat to kill her. With each attack, Leslie lost another piece of herself. Gripping and utterly compelling, Crazy Love takes you inside the violent, devastating world of abusive love. Conor said he'd been abused since he was a young boy, and love and rage danced intimately together in his psyche. Why didn't Leslie leave? She stayed because she loved him. Find out for yourself if she had fallen truly in love – or into a psychological trap. Crazy Love will draw you in -- and never let go.

A propulsive and ambitious novel as electrifying as The Wire, from a writer hailed as the West Coast's Richard Price—a mesmerizing epic of crime and opportunity, race, revenge, and loyalty, set in the chaotic streets of South Central L.A. in the wake of one of the most notorious and incendiary trials of the 1990s At 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force to subdue a black man named Rodney King, and failed to reach a verdict on the same charges involving a fourth officer. Less than two hours later, the city exploded in violence that lasted six days. In nearly 121 hours, fifty-three lives were lost. But there were even more deaths unaccounted for: violence that occurred outside of active rioting sites by those who used the chaos to viciously settle old scores. A gritty and cinematic work of fiction, All Involved vividly re-creates this turbulent and terrifying time, set in a sliver of Los Angeles largely ignored by the media during the riots. Ryan Gattis tells seventeen interconnected first-person narratives that paint a portrait of modern America itself—laying bare our history, our prejudices, and our complexities. With characters that capture the voices of gang members, firefighters, graffiti kids, and nurses caught up in these extraordinary circumstances, All Involved is a literary tour de force that catapults this edgy writer into the ranks of such legendary talents as Dennis Lehane and George V. Higgins.