“If my name came out, what would they even say? Chanel who works a nine-to-five entry-level job , had never been to London.”  

*Deep inhale, deep exhale* this book should be required reading. If not this book then at the very least Chanel Miller’s victim statement should be required reading. This is an important book. 

I don’t think that even now, as I type, I have figured out a way to review this book in a way that will do it justice. This book has joined the ranks as one of my favourite non-fiction reads of all time. This book felt important. I’ll be honest and say I put it off for some time because I simply wasn’t ready and while reading it I realised that my readiness had to be secondary for all the Emily Doe’s in the world, my readiness would have to take the back seat. 

I knew a few things goings into Chanel Miller’s Know My Name. I knew that in 2015 there was a Stanford rape case that somehow made its way to me, all the way in Johannesburg even though I had never been to Stanford. I knew that the most important thing that the media felt I needed to know about the case was that the accused was a really, really good swimmer. And finally, I knew that Chanel Miller was previously known as Emily Doe and that she had written a book about the events of that one night in January 2015 and the events that followed. 

I knew nothing about Chanel. I didn’t know whether she liked drawing, whether she liked cooking, whether her own future had been promising and whether or not she could even swim. Despite this, I came to this book incredibly aware that I knew a lot of Chanel’s, I also knew that I have been almost been a Chanel multiple times (I have also had some Swedes in my life) and I also knew that I needed to read this book for all those other soon-to-be Chanel’s. 

In reviewing this book I have considered simply taking pictures of the words in the book, putting them here and saying “yeah, what she said” and walking away but I am not going to do that, this book deserves a lot more than that. 

“What the fuck are you doing? She’s unconscious.

Do you think this is okay?

What are you smiling about?

Say sorry to her.”

Know My Name starts off with the author recalling everything that happened that evening before she went out. As I was reading the book I realised how detailed Chanel Miller told the stories about that night and how after that one moment of her memory loss she seemed to remember everything else with so much precision and clarity, then it dawned on me that the reason Chanel Miller could remember everything after that morning so well was because once her name changed from who she was to Emily Doe and to victim, she had no other choice but to be very specific and clear about everything else. She was victim now and victims don’t have the luxury of misremembering or of not knowing exactly what colour shoes they were wore and what food they had and how it tasted as it hit the tongue. Victims are held to an impossible high standard of being the custodians of everyones memory. Something small that no one else would have to remember victims are not only expected to remember that but to also remember everyone else’s reaction to the thing that happened. 

“I wanted to trim all the fat, all these distractions, to show you the meat of the story.”

I don’t think I have a lot to say about this book because it quite literally took my breath away and I am so glad that it is out there in the world because this story not only deserved to be told but because Chanel Miller is an incredibly gifted writer. Know My Name is a story about becoming a victim and also about staying who you are and waking up to the realisation that this new title, that the world insists on only knowing you by, is less than even a fraction of who you are. 

“In each line I found common, common, a part of , everybody, everybody. This pattern was not an accident. He was leading Brock back into the herd, where he would blend into the comfort of community. Compare this to when he had questioned me: You did a lot of partying. You’ve had blackouts before. It was you and you, the lens fixed so close I was stripped of surrounding. For Brock, his goal was to integrate, for me it was to isolate.”

If you read this book you will be aware of the hyper vigilance that all women across the world are conditioned into. You will learn that a lot of the world believes that abusers are following the crowd and doing what everyone else is doing and that the victims are being divergent and somehow landing themselves in trouble. You will cry with the Miller family and every other family that has had to go through what they went through. You will also be slightly more hopeful about the kindness of strangers and everyday heroes who lift others up simply by doing what’s right. You will also walk away knowing somethings about Chanel, like that she loves her younger sister fiercely, that she loves to draw and that she has no issues with not fitting the mould of what a victim and survivor of sexual assault is. 

Read this book. Whoever you are, if you haven’t yet, read this book. I think that is all I can say about this book, I could probably say more but the message of “read this book” deserves to not be surrounded by clutter, so I will leave it here and ask you once again to read this book. 

“My writing is sophisticated because I had a head start, because I am years in the making, because  I am my mother and her mother before. When I write, I have the privilege of using a language that she fought her whole life to understand. When I speak in opposition, I am grateful my voice is uncensored. I do not take my freedom of speech, my abundance of books, my access to education, my ease of first language for granted. My mom is a writer. The difference is, she spent the first twenty years of her life surviving. I am a writer, who spent twenty years of my life fed and loved in a home and classroom.”