Shout

Anderson starts the second section of the book with the first few lines from Speak. She acknowledges the murky boundaries between Speak’s protagonist, Melinda, and her own experience as a rape survivor: “Speak is a novel / rooted in facts, to be sure, / but a story bred with its own DNA / an invasive species growing out of a stump / of a tree hit by lightning / growing from the girl who survived” (168). While the novel is fictional, it is inherently intertwined with her own lived experience.

Although Anderson does not have high hopes for the novel, she is shocked to receive a nomination for the National Book Award. When attending the awards ceremony in New York City, Anderson feels out of place until she meets Walter Dean Myers, a fellow nominee and the acclaimed author of the young adult novel Monster. He makes her feel welcome in this new environment, cracking jokes during the award ceremony to calm her nerves. Both Anderson and Myers ended up losing.

At events to promote Speak, many attendees tell Anderson that they, too, are survivors of sexual assault and that they saw themselves in Melinda. These stories are often violent and graphic, and always told with shame. Many try to tell her that what they experienced wasn’t actually rape, as if they have somehow remembered the events incorrectly. Anderson, however, sees the definition of rape as far more abstract, telling her reader, “Let the lawyers keep score” of legal definitions (179), and that “pain won’t be contained / by bars or marks / your scars deserve attention, too” (179). How we personally define rape doesn’t matter when dealing with the traumatic aftermath of the event itself: It is the pain and how it is dealt with that matter most.

As she tours and speaks at many schools about her book, young men often ask why Melinda was so upset by the sexual assault, claiming that she liked her rapist beforehand and her feelings were overblown. Anderson treats the question with tenderness, pointing out that boys and men are often not explicitly taught about consent and intimacy by their parents or at school. Other boys approach her to ask how they can support a female friend who was raped, or to share their own stories about being raped. These conversations eventually lead Anderson to write her next novel, Twisted, about a young man grappling with similar questions.

Not every school Anderson visits is open to her speeches about consent, sex, and sexual violence. At one school, the principal, uncomfortable with the subject matter, pulls the fire alarm in the middle of the assembly when she is speaking. She is then informed that the presentation is over because the content is inappropriate for children and “those things don’t ever happen / in his school” (187).

Some school districts ban the book from being taught due to its “inappropriate” content. Citing legal precedents about censorship, Anderson calls this action “the child of fear / the father of ignorance” (191). She points out that censoring a novel about sexual assault does not preserve the innocence of students, but instead preserves the adults’ comfort. Using her work as a translator, Anderson tweaks the translation and interpretation of “abomination” as it relates to Eve and the Garden of Eden. She tells her readers, “the opposite of innocence / is strength” (194). Anderson visits the set of the Speak film adaptation. A man working behind the scenes tells Anderson he is a survivor, and many others on the film shoot are as well.

She then shifts into discussing the #MeToo movement, sharing anecdotes of women and girls feeling gaslit by their powerful abusers and forced to stay quiet. There is a moment of levity after this, in which she reminds men that sex is not about winning a game or dominating others with “Yourdamndick™.” Anderson pivots back to a more somber idea, proposes a poetic formula for determining when, or if, someone’s rapist can be forgiven. Ultimately, she tells readers: “forgive yourself / because no, my friend, / you are not overreacting. / Not one bit” (208).