âUnflinching and honestâŠboth timely and timelessâ (Houston Chronicle), this extraordinary collection of essays by the award-winning writer of The Other Sideârooted in her own experience with sexual assaultâpursues questions that strike at the heart of our national conversation about the justness of society.
In 2014, Lacy Johnson was giving a reading from The Other Side, her âinstant classicâ (Kirkus Reviews) memoir of kidnapping and rape, when a woman asked her what she would like to happen to her rapist. This collection âattempts to parcel out several knotted problems and suggests forms of meaningful justiceâ (Booklist, starred review). Drawing from philosophy, art, literature, mythology, anthropology, film, and her own experience of violence, Johnson considers how our ideas about justice might be expanded beyond vengeance and retribution to include acts of compassion, patience, mercy, and grace.
âThe Reckonings is not a book about changing the world. Itâs philosophy in disguise, equal parts memoir, criticism, and ethicsâŠThe twelve essays deserve great consideration, while you read it and long afterâ (NPR). From âSpeak Truth to Power,â about the condition of not being believed about rape and assault; to âGoliath,â about the ways evil is used as a form of social control; to âThe Fallout,â about ecological and generational violence, Johnson creates masterful, elaborate, gorgeously written essays that speak incisively about our current era. She grapples with justice and retribution, truth and fairness, and sexual assault and workplace harassment, as well as the broadest societal wrongs: the BP Oil Spill, government malfeasance, police killings. The Reckonings is a powerful and necessary work, ambitious in its scope, which âchallenges our cultureâs expectations of justice and expose the limits of vengeance and mercyâ (Ms. Magazine).