The Apology

Eve Ensler’s The Apology is the book equivalent into injecting acid (the devouring kind, not the trippy kind) into one’s veins. It tears you up inside and never quite goes away. She attempts to confront a childhood of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse by detailing it through the eyes of her chief abuser–her dead father. For this is his apology, a brilliant and terrifying self-indictment that Ensler never got from him in real life. We are hearing him from the afterlife, as he meditates on his sins in a strange, empty hell. He showers her with the long-withheld compliments and support that she so richly deserves, while building a careful explanation–certainly not a justification–of his sins as part of his apology. This book is not just a description of a single set of horrors, but an overarching meditation on the impact of abuse and the forces that inspire it. To have not only survived such a devastating childhood, but to have flourished and recover in such an innovative fashion, reveals Ensler to be an extraordinary human being. She looks a demon in the face, and manages to see something worth understanding. I salute her as a real-world superhero. With all my heart, I hope that she and other damaged women find what they need in this glorious piece of work.