“And I thought for just a minute there that… “IT, part 1-gasoline,” begins with this reveal: She then writes the painful details of her own rape and how it inspired Speak.
SHOUT begins with verses that include specifics of Anderson’s childhood, her family’s particular pathos-a broken WW2 veteran, a sister, and a shame-silenced wife. Anderson strings indelible images from her life into a collection poignant, gut-wrenching dots that, once connected, uncover what made her the person and artist she’s become.
Each poem is beautifully written and filled with vivid, often haunting descriptions. As the last line of the introduction states: “This is the story of a girl who lost her voice and wrote herself a new one.”Īnderson tells her life story in tiny snapshots and memories-the moments, events, and people that have influenced the arc of her life. Anderson, like Melinda, was also raped at 13, and she is an ardent believer that words-spoken, shouted, and written-offer a “bridge to escape” the shame. With Shout, Anderson opens a window into the personal experiences that gave her the insight, empathy, and emotion to conjure Melinda, a protagonist who, as she reveals in Shout, has become a hero (and a moniker) for survivors-men and women-of sexual assault. Shout, published in March, 2019, marks the twentieth anniversary of Anderson’s groundbreaking novel, Speak, which told the story of Melinda, a 13-year-old who stops speaking after she’s raped. New York Times best-selling author Laurie Halse Anderson departs from her beloved YA fiction with Shout, her brilliant new memoir written in verse.
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