Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You
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Overview
Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You destroys our complacency about who among us can commit unspeakable atrocities, who is subjected to them, and who can stop them. From age four to eighteen, Sue William Silverman was repeatedly sexually abused by her father, an influential government official and successful banker. Through her eyes, we see an outwardly normal family built on a foundation of horrifying secrets that long went unreported, undetected, and unconfessed.
Synopsis
Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You destroys our complacency about who among us can commit unspeakable atrocities, who is subjected to them, and who can stop them. From age four to eighteen, Sue William Silverman was repeatedly sexually abused by her father, an influential government official and successful banker. Through her eyes, we see an outwardly normal family built on a foundation of horrifying secrets that long went unreported, undetected, and unconfessed.
KLIATT
Incest might be one of the most painful subjects to read about, much less experience, and Silverman's memoir is an extraordinary example of this torture. She begins at age four, confused and emotionally wary about the sexual activities that she and her father explore. I found myself closing the book, but unable to rid my mind of the vivid, graphic scenes that are written in perfect clarity, charged with the horror of these unspeakable acts. An older sister nearby, a mother who retreats to her own bedroom; and this poor child must learn to deal with her father's anger and bizarre behavior until she is eighteen. It is quite understandable that most of these tragic memoirs are published following the death of the evil perpetrator. Silverman's father was, after all, chief counsel to the Secretary of the Interior, and then an international banker. Their luxurious suburban lifestyle hid the trauma that enveloped the household. Early on she notes, "everyone outside the house believes my father is perfect." Towards the end of the text, while under psychiatric care, she tells her mother, "I was sexually abused as a child." Her mother's unforgivable reply, "I had a terrible childhood, too," still reverberates in my mind. This poignant account of childhood sexual abuse is a tough read but its message is clear. Incest is not about sex, it is about violent power and absolute control. I applaud Silverman for her remarkable psychological journey back to a chance at a healthy future. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1996, University of Georgia Press, 272p, 22cm, 96-13706, $14.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Nancy Zachary; YALibn., Scarsdale P.L., Scarsdale, NY, May 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 3)
Editorials
KLIATT
Incest might be one of the most painful subjects to read about, much less experience, and Silverman's memoir is an extraordinary example of this torture. She begins at age four, confused and emotionally wary about the sexual activities that she and her father explore. I found myself closing the book, but unable to rid my mind of the vivid, graphic scenes that are written in perfect clarity, charged with the horror of these unspeakable acts. An older sister nearby, a mother who retreats to her own bedroom; and this poor child must learn to deal with her father's anger and bizarre behavior until she is eighteen. It is quite understandable that most of these tragic memoirs are published following the death of the evil perpetrator. Silverman's father was, after all, chief counsel to the Secretary of the Interior, and then an international banker. Their luxurious suburban lifestyle hid the trauma that enveloped the household. Early on she notes, "everyone outside the house believes my father is perfect." Towards the end of the text, while under psychiatric care, she tells her mother, "I was sexually abused as a child." Her mother's unforgivable reply, "I had a terrible childhood, too," still reverberates in my mind. This poignant account of childhood sexual abuse is a tough read but its message is clear. Incest is not about sex, it is about violent power and absolute control. I applaud Silverman for her remarkable psychological journey back to a chance at a healthy future. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 1996, University of Georgia Press, 272p, 22cm, 96-13706, $14.95. Ages 16 to adult. Reviewer: Nancy Zachary; YALibn., Scarsdale P.L., Scarsdale, NY, May 2000 (Vol. 34 No. 3)Kirkus Reviews
A woman's excrutiatingly painful and explicit account of 14 years of incestuous abuse.With great courage and startling compassion, Silverman tells the story of how her father, once chief counsel to the secretary of the Interior and later an international banker, made her his sexual companion. Beginning when she was four years old, the incest escalated from fondling in the bathtub to oral and finally full-fledged and frequent vaginal intercourse. With her mother's unspoken acquiesence ("I was a present to her husband") Silverman became a willing instrument in calming her beloved father's frequent rages. Extraordinarily frank ("It feels good, yes. I discover its pleasure before its shame"), Silverman is able to recreate the emotional trail that leads from terror to pleasure, from confusion and fear to disassociation. Two new personalities emerge to take the brunt of her father's sexual forays. One is Dina, passive and wanting only to please; the other is Celeste, angry, challenging, and hungry. But even with these guardian personae, the little girl Sue remains acutely vulnerable. As a second-grader, she felt so unprotected that she dropped out of school for a year; a few years later, during an especially traumatic period, she spent most of three months sleeping. As Silverman enters adolescence, she struggles to break away, but not until she leaves for college does her father abruptly stop his sexual marauding. Silverman spends the next 30 years trying to understand and control both her sexual aggressiveness and her self-starvation—an attempt, in essence, to make her abused body disappear. With therapy and a loving husband, she succeeds and, almost unbelievably, comes to terms with her parents as well.
Harrowing in its depiction of savage violation and profoundly moving in its portrait of a child's fear, confusion, and desperate search for a safe place.