The Biography of a Prairie Girl Book

A very good book, but no way would I compare it with Running with Scissors; it's far more hypnotic and harrowing, less jokey. Rachel Sontag's father never physically or sexually abused her, her sister or her mother; instead he went after them verbally with a ritual savagery night after night, while playing the part of a selfless doctor, devoutly religious man, and excellent father (trips to Europe and Cancun, wilderness and summer camps, &c &c) in the day. In effect and nearly in fact he imprisoned them, and this memoir is the story of Rachel's slow jailbreak out. Like all memoirs of this type, it trails off a little vaguely and the second half about young adulthood is nowhere near as mesmerizing as the first half detailing Rachel's childhood, but her writing has a quiet, vivid power and the book isn't junked up with pop therapy cliches.

And just in case you doubt Rachel's story or even think she might be exaggerating it a little, her father has put up a completely batshit website dedicated to "refuting" her book which instead horrifyingly confirms nearly everything she says. I have never seen anything like it in all my life. It's at sontaghouserules dot com. People react here and here


There's also a very interesting interview with her on UTU (despite a rather dickish host): Part 1, Part 2 What interested me was she said she got letters from people she didn't know, or hadn't seen in 20-25 years, who wrote to her agent saying her father had treated them the same way: family friends, family members, coworkers. My personal theory is that in this type of situation people go on about oh, we had no idea, such a professional, such a happy family, blahblah, nobody knew. Which is bullshit. Nobody had a clue about Ted Bundy! No, his girlfriend for one thing knew he disappeared for days at a time, faked plaster casts, &c. Nobody had a clue about Jerry Sandusky! Bullshit, Paterno knew at least as far back as 1998 Sandusky had molested children. The abuser covers up and terrifies the people he's abusing into not just not telling, but not being able to tell themselves what's going on, and the people who do maybe kinda suss out what's going on just don't know what to do. (It amazes me she was sent to a group home for abused girls by a social worker and then she just....went back home after a couple of months apparently. It amazes me.)