RECKONING

A celebrated feminist playwright grapples with the personal traumas that inspired her to become an activist.

In her latest book, V—formerly Eve Ensler (b. 1953)—gathers journal entries, poems, essays, and articles penned over the last 45 years to understand her journey from the young woman she was to the person she became. The author begins this eclectic collection with a childhood memory of her father slapping her in the face. The moment was transformative: From then on, she “had to pretend to be someone else in order to survive,” a situation that made her feel like a "prisoner.” The “walls” of trauma that surrounded her came to symbolize the challenges she struggled to overcome as an adult through addictions to alcohol, drugs, and sex. Working as a volunteer in New York City women’s shelters and jails helped V rechannel self-destructive impulses toward more positive ends. Words—which she calls her “friends” and the source of her power—became another portal to liberation. Through writing, she was able to explore the wounds and complex emotions that emerged in the years after her father’s sexual abuse while documenting the social, political, and economic suffering of women in Europe, Africa, and Asia. As she confronted the destruction wrought by toxic masculinity on so many levels, V began to see how it was tied to the brutal, hyperexploitative system of global capitalism and understand that all forms of injustice—including racism—were connected to female oppression. “There is no hierarchy of suffering,” writes the author, “only the joining into a single river of outrage, compassion and revolt.” Deeply felt, thoughtful, and lyrical, the narrative offers a reflection on the connectedness of the personal and political and the need for all humanity to reckon fully with its past in pursuit of a more just world.

An elegant and timely book.