Book Review: Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood

For the past year, I have been receiving complimentary advanced copies of forthcoming books through an online broker, and I have tried to select for classical themes in line with the stated objectives of this blog. It can be difficult to fully ascertain the finer details of some works on the site through the sparse summaries the publishers provide. At the time I asked for a copy, I believed Trauma Plot to be more in line with the content of the introduction; that being, an exploration of sexual violence throughout history, and its relation to the author’s own experiences. When I discovered this was not the case, I briefly considered returning the book un-reviewed, which is always a possibility, but I had enjoyed what I’d read up to that point, and believed it to have enough broader educational merit to continue on. Though this may stick out in regards to content when compared to everything else I’ve posted here, I don’t think it’s too indulgent to discuss the merits of this book this week. If enough of my audience disagrees I’d be willing to follow up later in a few days with another review, but for now these are my thoughts on Trauma Plot by Jamie Hood. Please note that given the topic of sexual violence and rape in the book, this review may not be for everyone. I do my best to avoid going into much detail, but suffice it to say that if those stories are something you don’t want to read about, this won’t be for you anyway.

A line from the summary blurb on the Penguin Random House website refers to this book as interrogative, which I find to be an incredibly apt descriptor. The introduction explains why Hood has a personal interest in exploring sexual assault and rape in the wider western culture, and establishes her credibility to speak on the topic outside her personal experiences. On the other hand, her assessments of historical and mythological accounts maintain a strong sense of academic detachment. The story is told through four narrative perspectives, each from a different point of view that holds the author’s relationship to her as a protagonist in a different light. Beginning with the third person singular (i.e. Hood refers to herself as “she” or “Jamie”) is vitally important in building the images as a personal history rather than a personal account, as in the first person singular of the second chapter. The third chapter is the most creative of the set; most stories written in the second person singular on the market overdo the premise, but the author here presents the days leading up to the events as journal entries written to herself. The final chapter, then, acts as a reflection on her life in meetings with her therapist primarily using the first person plural. All of these lenses interrogate different aspects of her life in different ways, and show that sexual violence of this kind can come from almost anywhere.

All throughout, Jamie Hood makes time to reflect on the other fields where she has found similar traumas represented: art, mythology, a little bit of psychology, and of course literature, from which the author borrows a modern trope in storytelling for the name of this book. Some things I had no frame of reference for were well-explained throughout the story, but I encountered the most trouble with A Little Life, which the author seems to take for granted that the reader has previous familiarity with more than what a quick glance at the Wikipedia page would reveal.

As much as I read and enjoy reading, I tend to stay out of most big literary circles, so the aforementioned discussion around the phenomenon of a “trauma plot” in popular literature was a further barrier to entry than just dealing with sexual assault in general. I’m sure that having a working knowledge of Ovid helped me a little bit, for example, but The Metamorphoses plays a much smaller role in relation to the narrative here. I certainly wouldn’t go so far as to label the book as “pretentious,” partially because that word has fallen into total misuse, but it also doesn’t fit the popular definition because on reflection I might fall outside the target demographic (i.e. not being one of those people into contemporary literature discussions). Is it indulgent, then? No, not that either. Once the initial misunderstanding on the sort of book this was had been cleared up,¹ the book was as it presented itself. Hood is clearly well-read, and to dumb things down too much in the explanations would jeopardize the authentic presentation of the way she evidently thinks. That being said, I’m convinced that a little more hand-holding for a wider audience would have gone a long way.

Even with all this high praise on a technical level, I don’t think I can recommend this book to a wider audience. Even putting aside all the graphic details of the sexual violence that may put off a portion of the audience, there is other content I find objectionable. Late last year I decided to move misandry into the column of forms of hate that I would no longer tolerate, and this novel has an absurd amount of misandry in it. The author paints nearly every male figure in her life as a lecherous sleazebag or something to objectify. Most other women fare no better. Part of the issue is that some characterizations come from inner monologue exaggeration and other events get punched up to simplify the reader’s experience with the book, but the narrative still presents itself as an account of real lives and the real people who live them.² I say this fully knowing how the dynamic of the majority of conscious human history trends towards men doing the same towards women, but even in that context it comes across as petty at best and hypocritical at worst.

Had these stories been presented as fictionalized accounts based on true events, maybe my attitude would be different, but as-is this just puts more discord out into the world. For the record, I’m glad I read it; I’ll still give it one star for the educational merits and interesting perspective it gives to the reader, which shelves it in my mind right next to Georges Bataille. For those who take that as a compliment by all means pick up a copy,³ but otherwise this one might be worth skipping.

1. A marketing error, to be sure. Not an authorial one.

2. Not just the rapists, but everyone else as well. I could handle it if it were just the rapists, but the whole thing is just so deeply cynical in addition to the graphic content

3. That is to say, I understand that there may be some deeper anthropological or philosophical understanding to be gleaned from this, but if there is, I’m not smart enough to parse it. Believe it or not, I’m not arrogant enough to suggest there are things outside my grasp.