This Story Is Mine

This, I think, is the cost of telling, even in the guise of fiction. Once you do, it’s the only thing about you anyone will ever care about. It defines you whether you want it to or not. — Kate Elizabeth Russell

Who would have thought something that happened that long ago could have such power? — Alice Sebold

In June 1964, a few weeks before my thirteenth birthday, I was raped by a man old enough to be my father. As shocking as that sentence is, its construction is flawed. As a writer, I try to avoid using the passive voice, because, say William Strunk and E. B. White in The Elements of Style, “the active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive.” That is the kind of writer and person I would like to be — direct and vigorous. But if I rewrite that sentence in the active voice, it becomes: “Gerry Graham raped me when I was not yet thirteen.” In effect, this becomes his story, not...