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Article: Intimate Violence: Reading Rape and Torture in Twentieth-Century Fiction.
- Article from:
- Criticism
- Article date:
- September 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Wayne State University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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After I had agreed to review this book, it sat unopened on my desk for several months while I tried to work up the courage to read it. People who came into my office would see it lying there, its glossy black cover broken by a gaping, wound-like patch of red displaying the title in ragged black letters, and invariably they would ask me, "Why are you reading that?" In all those months, nobody ever said to me, "Hey, that sounds like a really great read" or "I, too, am deeply interested in the subject of torture; could you lend me the book when you're done?" Instead, one person after another reacted to the mere presence of such a book exactly as I did: with revulsion and ...