“Thomas Trezise's graceful and deeply honest examination of how he responded to a brutal assault on his wife—his internal conflicts, self-blame, fear, and anger—will be of immense value to other men who have experienced the same horror. A powerful argument that violence against women is not a woman's problem alone, but one that belongs to us all.”—Helen Benedict, author of Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes
“This is a man’s story and a husband’s story. It begins when the author’s wife is raped, strangled, and left for dead in a ravine in the French countryside. The assault has never stopped reverberating in his mind. Words like ‘trigger’ and ‘resilience’ can’t begin to convey the depth of feeling and self-knowledge Trezise shares with his readers as he watches himself, over three decades, grow to understand his own part in their shared trauma and recovery. What do we owe to our partners and to ourselves? How are intellectual passions sparked by life experience? Trezise brings to this story an uncompromising honesty and emotional rigor. His essential book builds hope amidst the ruins.”—Alice Kaplan, author of French Lessons: A Memoir
“Thomas Trezise's graceful and deeply honest examination of how he responded to a brutal assault on his wife—his internal conflicts, self-blame, fear, and anger—will be of immense value to other men who have experienced the same horror. A powerful argument that violence against women is not a woman's problem alone, but one that belongs to us all.”—Helen Benedict, author of Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes
“This is a man’s story and a husband’s story. It begins when the author’s wife is raped, strangled, and left for dead in a ravine in the French countryside. The assault has never stopped reverberating in his mind. Words like ‘trigger’ and ‘resilience’ can’t begin to convey the depth of feeling and self-knowledge Trezise shares with his readers as he watches himself, over three decades, grow to understand his own part in their shared trauma and recovery. What do we owe to our partners and to ourselves? How are intellectual passions sparked by life experience? Trezise brings to this story an uncompromising honesty and emotional rigor. His essential book builds hope amidst the ruins.”—Alice Kaplan, author of French Lessons: A Memoir
“Beginning Again opened my mind and my heart to dimensions of human existence that had escaped me. By exploring his inner life as the husband of a rape survivor, the father of a son, a scholar, and a man questioning the norms of masculinity, Thomas Trezise enables us to both feel and understand the reach of secondary trauma. At once necessary and fully realized, his memoir generates deep comprehension as well as profound emotion.”—Stéphane Gerson, author of Disaster Falls: A Family Story
