Denial: A Memoir of Terror

“Denial is one of the most important books I have read in a decade....Brave, life-changing, and gripping as a thriller….A tour de force.”
—Naomi Wolf

One of the world’s foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder, Jessica Stern has subtitled her book Denial, “A Memoir of Terror.” A brave and astonishingly frank examination of her own unsolved rape at the age of fifteen, Denial investigates how the rape and its aftermath came to shape Stern’s future and her work. The author of the New York Times Notable Book Terror in the Name of God, Jessica Stern brilliantly explores the nature of evil in an extraordinary volume that Louise Richardson, author of What Terrorists Want, calls, “Memorable, powerful and deeply courageous…a riveting read.”

"I have listened and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak."

One of the world's foremost experts on terrorism and post-traumatic stress disorder investigates her own unsolved adolescent sexual assault at the hands of a serial rapist, and in so doing, examines the horrors of trauma and denial.

Alone in an unlocked house in a safe neighborhood in the suburban town of Concord, Massachusetts, two good, obedient girls, Jessica Stern, fifteen, and her sister, fourteen, were raped on the night of October 1, 1973. The girls had just come back from ballet lessons and were doing their homework when a strange man armed with a gun entered their home. Afterward, when they reported the crime, the police were skeptical.

The rapist was never caught. For over thirty years, Stern denied the pain and the trauma of the assault. Following the example of her family, Stern—who lost her mother at the age of three, and whose father was a Holocaust survivor—focused on her work instead of her terror. She became a world-class expert on terrorism, a lauded academic and writer who interviewed terrorists around the globe. But while her career took off, her success hinged on her symptoms. After her ordeal she could not feel fear in normally frightening situations.

Stern believed she'd disassociated from the trauma altogether, until a devoted police lieutenant reopened the sisters' rape case and brought her back to that harrowing night more than three decades past. With the help of the lieutenant, Stern began her own investigation—bringing to bear all her skills as a researcher—to uncover the truth about the town of Concord, her family, and her own mind. The result is Denial, a candid, courageous, and ultimately hopeful look at a trauma and its aftermath.

“Jessica Stern has written a remarkable book, unlike any that I’ve read. This deeply personal and often painful reflection documents the costs of personal, familial, and community silence as well as the liberating effects of truthful testimony.” - Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of Multiple Intelligences

“Jessica Stern’s harrowing memoir of a girl who trauma has taught to distrust herself and who learns to live with the idea of her helplessness--a girl who once turned away from what she could not understand or accept – examines the violence at the heart of things, with an appeal to compassion and forgiveness, rather than a condemnation of the destructive impulses that haunt each of us.” - Susanna Moore, author of IN THE CUT

“One of the most important books I have read in a decade….Brave, life changing and gripping as a thriller...A tour de force.” - Naomi Wolf

“Wonderfully compassionate, absorbing reading for anyone.” - Booklist (starred review)

“DENIAL is one of the most important books I have read in a decade...[a] cogent meditation on the links between sexual sadism, humiliation and political terrorism. This is a groundbreaking book, in terms of how it shows that personal experience--especially the ‘shameful’ personal experience of having been victim of a sex crime--can be used to illuminate the most urgent questions of our time.... Brave, life-changing and gripping as a thriller, DENIAL should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand terrorism and anyone who has survived a trauma of any kind--indeed, this should be read by anyone seeking to understand the nature of evil. A tour de force.” - Naomi Wolf

“A memorable, powerful and deeply courageous book, DENIAL is also a riveting read... With devastating honesty [Stern] explores the impact of trauma on victims and those close to them, and the costs of denial for both.” - Louise Richardson, author of WHAT TERRORISTS WANT

“[Denial] will allow people into parts of themselves they didn’t ven knew they had. Parts full of rage, of terror, of pride in their own detachment... For anyone who has lived at proximity to violence, it is one of the most necessary accounts of our time.” - Eliza Griswold, journalist and author of WIDEAWAKE FIELD

“[Denial is a] powerfully constructed memoir … [an] incandescently honest book…” - Washington Post

“a compelling investigation into her own life, the life of the serial rapist who committed at least 44 similar crimes and the way trauma affects everyone it touches, sometimes in surprisingly positive ways.” - Time magazine

“An extraordinary memoir conveys Stern’s process of denial, dissociation, and healing in her dawning realization of intolerable truths.” - Providence Journal

“Most moving is the author’s contemplation of denial itself, and its effect of re-victimizing the victim… She successfully unearths difficult emotional terrain without sinking into utter subjectivity and maintains an orderly progression without becoming clinical. A disturbing, captivating memoir.” - Kirkus Reviews

“A masterpiece. A remarkable human journey from confusion and doubt to clarity and perspective. Stern gives an incisive account of the shape of the imprint of trauma on body and soul, and shows us how honest confrontation with what we already know, but try to forget, is essential in order to be liberated from the past.” - Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University Medical School and Founder and Medical Director of the Trauma Center

“A masterpiece. A remarkable human journey from confusion and doubt to clarity and perspective.” - Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University Medical School and Founder and Medical Director of the Trauma Center

“An unflinchingly courageous self-examination of the impact of trauma on an individual’s unfolding life. Through her riveting and brilliantly told story, Jessica Stern lays out the impact of trauma on an individual’s ways of experiencing the world, how trauma is transmitted across generations, and how severe trauma can be adaptively transformed. The book will be illuminating for victims and survivors of trauma, those who work or live with them, family members with generational histories of trauma, and for those who care about how our histories shape our lives.” - Edward R. Shapiro, M.D. Medical Director and CEO, Austen Riggs Center and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

“An unflinchingly courageous self-examination... riveting and brilliantly told story... The book will be illuminating for victims and survivors of trauma, those who work or live with them, family members with generational histories of trauma, and for those who care about how our histories shape our lives.” - Edward R. Shapiro, M.D. Medical Director and CEO, Austen Riggs Center and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine

“[An] eloquent, vital book. . .brilliant [and] indispensable.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“[A] stunningly brave book.” - Elle

“This month’s must-read nonfiction: terrorism expert Jessica Stern’s DENIAL: A Memoir of Terror which opens the decades-old file of a crime committed against Stern as a teen, launching her on a gutsy investigation into the ways in which trauma is perpetuated.” - Vogue

“[Stern’s] commitment to introspection makes for a book that is memorably searing…” - New York Times Book Review

“[Stern’s rapist] whose chaotic life and whose own probable victimization Stern reconstructs, caused her lifelong anguish. She doesn’t simply tell us so but shows us in shattered, artfully repetitive narration.” - Boston Globe

“…An intense and honest examination…DENIAL is a touching portrait of how the after affects of trauma can influence the personal and professional life of its victim.” - Philadelphia Tribune

“[A] harrowing memoir of a girl whom trauma has taught to distrust herself and who learns to live with the idea of her helplessness...an appeal to compassion and forgiveness, rather than a condemnation of the destructive impulses that haunt each of us.” - Susanna Moore, author of IN THE CUT

“A memorable, powerful and deeply courageous book, DENIAL is also a riveting read. Stern brings a unique combination of insight, empathy, and acumen to bear in helping us to understand the perpetrators of violence. With devastating honesty she explores the impact of trauma on victims and those close to them, and the costs of denial for both.” - Louise Richardson, author of WHAT TERRORISTS WANT

“Jessica Stern has always had the gift of disappearing into the lives and minds of terrorists. In this book, she faces the greater challenge of her own. The layers of abuse she has encountered, her tender matter-of-factness, her refusal of self-pity in favor of insatiable curiosity—these are some of her gifts born of trauma. This book will allow people into parts of themselves they did not have access to, or even knew they had. Parts full of rage, of terror, of pride in their own detachment. It will allow their hearts to begin to break. For anyone who has lived at proximity to violence, it is one of the most necessary accounts of our time.” - Eliza Griswold, journalist and author of WIDEAWAKE FIELD

“In this skillfully wrought, powerful study, a terrorism expert, national security adviser, and lecturer at Harvard, returns to a definitive episode of terror in her own early life and traces its grim, damaging ramifications… Stern’s work is a strong, clear-eyed, elucidating study of the profound reverberations of trauma.” - Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“DENIAL [is] a profound human document… it is hot to the touch in ways that are both memorable and disturbing.” - New York Times

“[Stern’s] eloquent, vital book is mesmerizing. Long before I finished, I had made a mental list of several friends on whom I will press it, knowing that it will trigger the kind of discussion one has with those one trusts the most…With DENIAL, Jessica Stern has written a brilliant, indispensable book.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer