Childhood Sexual Abuse In Zoe Zolbrod's The Telling

In Zoe Zolbrod’s The Telling, Zolbrod narrates the causes and the lasting effects of her own sexual abuse at the hands of her cousin, Toshi, who lived with her family for a year. The memoir does not only focus on this event in her life, but also explores the development of her sexuality, relationships, and motherhood. One of the main focuses of her memoir is the idea that not every victim’s story of sexual abuse conforms to the same narrative and how this is the reason so many questions go unanswered when considering childhood sexual abuse. Her own story was significantly different, in the way that it affected her and how she grew up relatively happy and content with her home life. In return, she felt isolated which drove her to explore different narratives through statistics and fact in addition to her own.
The memoir is separated into three main movements. The first movement, aptly titled “Youth,” dives into Zolbrod’s childhood and explains how her cousin came to live with her. She details how Toshi would slip in at night and touch her, however she had always assumed it was because he …show more content…
The two main events of the part involve telling family members about her abuse. The first of the two is forced out of her by her cousin, Rebecca while visiting her home. Rebecca consistently pushes for Zolbrod to reveal what Toshi did to her by interrogating her until she finally cracks under pressure. She describes feeling “sick, hysterical” and “exposed” afterwards and states, “I felt like a victim...I felt like I was being driven home from a party at which I’d been sexually assaulted” (144). This statement is so significant because she relates the truth being forced out of her to her actual sexual abuse. Her blame is placed solely on Rebecca instead of Toshi in that moment and comes as a powerful shock to both the reader and Zolbrod