survivor stories – Valerie Dimino

This is a big month for Jessica and me and for our book. The Man Behind the Curtain: A Memoir is officially 1 year old!

And what a year it’s been:

My favorite local bookstore, Lift Bridge Book Shop in Brockport, New York, hosted our launch party. As I spoke to that room filled with loved ones, including several of my grad school professors who helped me form the earliest drafts of this book, I was overwhelmed with emotion and the surreal realization that We made it. This is really happening!

I wrote about takeaways from that first author event in a guest blog post for New Shelves, gurus of the publishing industry.

We also held author events with three libraries, a book club, and Writers & Books, a fabulous literary arts center in Rochester, New York.

We’ve been grateful to get on the shelves at so many wonderful shops and libraries. I’ve started a #shopsmall list here! If you don’t find us at your local library or book shop, please put us in contact or ask them to order the book through Ingram.

We’ve consistently remained among Amazon’s best sellers in the Teen & Young Adult Nonfiction on Sexual Abuse category, alongside names like Laurie Halse Anderson, Aly Raisman, and Chessy Prout, whom I revere and learned so much from in my research.

I was a guest on the Normal Lies podcast, which “challenges beliefs you thought were true about you and your world.” Host Linda Heeler was so compassionate with her questions and feedback.

I hosted a Zoom conversation called Trauma, Reclamation, & Healing with my friend Katie Baptist, a brilliant social worker, sex therapist, feminist, and fellow writer. We talked about what we’ve learned through our work and took questions from the audience. It was an inspiring conversation about silencing, speaking up, shame, and self-discovery.

Jessica and I were on air with WGNS Radio in Tennessee to talk about the book, the long-term effects of abuse (especially from childhood), tips for healing and for helping, the importance of delving into difficult conversations, and so much more. We’re grateful to host Scott Walker for his thoughtful discussion.

I launched my email newsletter, “Letting the Words Out,” sharing news about author events and other ways to get involved, plus highlights from the blog, my social media, life on the farm, and more. I’m looking forward to sharing some new writing-life updates there soon. You can subscribe here.

I’ve savored the growth of this blog, enjoying the creative outlet and opportunities for connection it provides. I appreciated the full-circle moment of blogging about the book’s publication and readers’ reactions, after having earlier introduced you to Jessica and posting a Q&A with her as we neared publication. This blog has been a part of the journey each step of the way.

Inspired by a friend’s generous suggestion, we launched a book donation campaign, asking you to consider purchasing a copy of The Man Behind the Curtain to donate to a place in your community where a new reader can discover it — a library, little free library, school, community center, nonprofit organization, etc. If you get in touch to let me know you’re interested, I’ll mail you a bookplate sticker to include in your donated copy!

We’ve appreciated powerful reviews from readers. If you’ve read the book (thank you!), please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads as to how it impacted you. We love to hear from our readers, and that word of mouth is immensely helpful in connecting us with more readers!

Throughout all of this, the most amazing part has been the countless inspiring conversations we’ve had with fellow victims and allies. To know that this book is sparking conversation and helping others to feel understood, inspired, and hopeful — that’s exactly what we aimed to do in writing it.

As incredible as this journey has already been, there is so much more to come. It’s exciting to think of this book continuing to find its way into the world and into new readers’ hands.

We’re just getting started.

Many of these opportunities have required continuing to find new ways to challenge myself and step farther outside of my comfort zone. As a debut author and a self-published one to boot, I have to be willing to put myself out there.

But public speaking — the events in person, on Zoom, on the radio, on the podcast — made me nervous beforehand (and a little bit during).

And they left me buzzing with adrenaline and gratitude afterward.

While I’m not typically one to seek out the spotlight, I am one to seek out opportunities to generate discussion around the important (and admittedly difficult) themes our book addresses: abuse, victim shaming, the long-term effects of trauma — and how Jessica’s story is a shining example of the possibilities of rising above it all.

It’s no coincidence that our book’s birthday month is also Sexual Assault Awareness Month as well as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. While we wish there wasn’t still such a pressing need for these kinds of conversations, we’re honored to be a part of them and help further the cause however we can.

As we work to continue these discussions, Jessica and I humbly ask that you consider your contacts and help us make some new connections.

Who do you know who…

works with a school, library, bookstore, or nonprofit?
is part of a book club?
has a podcast or blog?
reviews books on Instagram, TikTok, or elsewhere?
writes for a magazine, journal, newspaper, or website?
has celebrity connections?
also speaks about triumph over trauma?
has some other literary or newsy interest?

We want to chat with them! Please comment here, send me their contact info, or send them mine, and I’ll be grateful to have a conversation about possibilities.

Sincere thanks to all of you who have helped make this year amazing and have helped this book spread its little wings and fly.

Thank you for continuing to help us pull back the curtain.

My debut book is out(!) — and its content packs a punch. A story like this may upset you or inspire you. I hope it will do both.

The Man Behind the Curtain is a memoir I coauthored for a survivor of sexual abuse whose family and community tried to silence her when the truth came out. As I’ve blogged about before — in introducing you to Jessica and in interviewing her as we neared the finish line — there’s no denying that this is difficult subject matter, and that’s precisely why we felt it needed to be heard.

For too many years, Jessica was the one made to feel guilty about what had been done to her, including feeling guilty if she tried to talk about it — even long after the abuse had been reported and investigated, even long after her rapist stepfather was convicted and imprisoned. The people who continue (yes, present tense) to revere her abuser and portray Jessica as a liar have made grand attempts to shame her into continued silence. As I write about in the book’s afterword, Jessica told me in one of our early meetings, “Every time I tell my story, I apologize for my story.”

This is maddening. Jessica knew it wasn’t right but had to wrestle with that for years, often alone. I knew it wasn’t right upon my first meeting with her, scribbling down page after page of notes by hand as the earliest notion of a book took shape. Now our readers are experiencing that fury, too — and I must say, I love to hear that.

“I was so enraged I wanted to throw the book across the room on multiple occasions,” wrote one reviewer. Another wrote, “This book will make you angry. And it should. A brutally honest depiction of the abuse that a young girl faced, and the heartbreaking account of those closest to her who refused to believe it.”

I want you to feel angry. I also want you to feel proud of Jessica, as I do and as so many readers have told us they do, and cheer for her as she finds her courage and her voice amidst all of those causes of anger.

And I want you to know that Jessica’s story, as shocking and infuriating as it is, is not unique. I want you to be all the angrier to think about the countless others who have lived a story like this or are currently living it. And I want you to be all the more inspired and hopeful and proud to think about each one of those people stepping into their own power. Jessica and I hope that a book like ours helps them, and their loved ones, along that journey. As we write in the book’s last chapter, we’re aiming to “help others take their own first step — or second, or hundredth — toward healing, and toward hope.”

Michelle Bowdler’s memoir, Is Rape a Crime? A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto, served as a torch guiding my way through my research and writing. In an essay she wrote for Lit Hub, “When Your Memoir Has the Word ‘Rape’ in the Title,” Michelle addresses a struggle similar to Jessica’s: “The temptation to hide the word because the reality of rape is so horrific only made it more critical that it stood front and center in my book. As it was in my life, it would be in my words. If I hid the word rape and its impact on me, it would make anything about my life a lie, an omission, a nod to shame and silence.”

In working to suppress the shame and self-doubt, people like Michelle and Jessica used something terrible as a catalyst for something great, providing a guiding light to other survivors who are still trying to find their way through.

I see a similar light emerging from the darkness when I watch a woman address her church about the abuse their pastor inflicted upon her as a teen, or when I read about the reckoning currently unfolding for the Southern Baptist Convention — which encompasses Jessica’s family’s church — about sexual abuse from the highest ranks, covered up for decades by its executive committee. When I hear these stories, I am simultaneously furious and hopeful, with each emotion amplifying the other. I’m honored if our book can evoke a similar cycle of feelings for our readers.

Yes, the things Jessica experienced can be difficult to hear about. The fact that she and too many other people have lived those difficult things makes it imperative that others of us are willing to hear about them and discuss them. We may not always understand or know what to say. We may feel powerless in response to such horrible things. But we can listen. That seemingly simple action holds a lot of power.

In listening, we acknowledge the victim as a fellow human being with a story bigger than their abuse, with a life still to be made. We bear witness, we learn, we grow.

Another reviewer of our book wrote, “This is admittedly a tough read from an emotional standpoint, but it is well worth the pain to read how Jessica persevered.”

Jessica and I are both so grateful to our readers for being willing to take this emotional journey with us. Collectively, we come out the other side of it stronger. I hope continuing to share stories like this helps us find a way forward, toward a time when there are far fewer of them to tell.