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| Words Can
Describe
Synopsis
I woke with a start. The duvet was gone and there was a man on top of me. I shut my eyes. It took several peeks before I realized: this is happening. Only 5 per cent of reported rapes in the UK result in a conviction. Only 20 per cent of rapes perpetrated in the UK are even reported. Twelve years ago writer Abi Grant was attacked by a rapist who broke into her flat at 5am. She reported it but was told that her attacker was not known to the police and that was that.
Fifteen violent minutes had changed her life. She lost everything: home, relationship, agent, money, career even her dog. For eight years she floundered, unable to work and sinking further and further into depression and addiction. Gradually, she picked up the threads and began to rebuild her life. Then 12 years after the attack, the Cold Case Unit came calling
This is her story complete with dysfunctional family background and a step-by-step account of what going to court to try to get a rape conviction in 21st-century Britain really means, and how easy it is for any one of us to slip through societys cracks. Abis unique voice angry, hurt and often, amazingly, very, very funny gives the lie to the old saw that words cannot describe terrible experiences. They can and she does, honestly, wittily and passionately.
Reviews & comment
Joan Smith (author of Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice)
It brings to life something that many women fear: not just becoming the victim of a sex attack but the endless frustration of trying to ensure that the perpetrator is brought to justice.
There is a crisis about sexual violence in this country, with most rapists fully aware of how unlikely they are to be convicted. Words Can Describe is vivid, frank and courageous, and Im sure many women will be grateful to Abi Grant for telling the truth at, I imagine, some cost to herself.
William Leith in the London Evening Standard
When something terrible happens, says Abi Grant, people say Words cannot describe how I feel. Well something terrible happened to Grant. A serial rapist broke into her flat and attacked her. Here, she describes, with admirable clarity, how it makes her feel. She tells us about the stages of suffering the assault, the aftermath, the investigation, the telling of other people. She shows how one event casts a shadow over many years. She demonstrates the descriptive power of words.
Rachel Cooke in The Observer
The author herself
is resolutely anti-miserable, always cracking jokes. Her account of the attack is unblinking, matter of fact and occasionally sardonic. It was when he started strangling me that I realised it wasn't a social call, she tells a police officer who interviews her afterwards. She has stern things to say about rape conviction rates, pathetically low in this country, and about police procedure and the judicial system
Describing her recovery, she manages to convey the loneliness of it without even so much as a hint of self-pity.
Alexandra Blair in The Times
The book is an eloquent appeal, to men and women, to change their thinking about rape and sexual assault.
Andrea Butcher in the Socialist Review
despite the horrible thing that happened to her, she always manages to place it within a much wider context.
James Mitchell in Tonight Entertainment Guide, South Africa
Grant's voice is angry. She squashes myths
Compelling.
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Out now from Picador >>
Now a Sunday Times Bestseller available from major bookshops and amazon.co.uk
Read an extract:
The Mail on Sunday
Listen to Abi Grant talking to Jenni Murray on
Radio 4, Woman's Hour
Read an inteview: Abi Grant talks to Claire Black about men, women and rape, in The Scotsman
Abi Grant was one of a panel discussing families in literature as part of a recent major authors' event at Foyles booksellers in London. She was also a speaker at the Cambridge Wordfest Spring 2010
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