Jeannie Vanasco Interview

Jeannie Vanasco teaches at Towson University and is the author of the memoir The Glass Eye (2017). Her writing has appeared in The Believer, the New York Times​, and the NewYorker.com.

In her new memoir Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl—released by Tin House in October, 2019—Jeannie recounts being raped by a former friend. She tracks him down and interviews him years later about his actions. She expresses hope the book will reach not only victims of rape, but also perpetrators and enablers.

I met with Jeannie at a bar in Baltimore. She was my teacher, so it was natural when she showed up with papers to grade. Still willing to give her time, Jeannie spoke at length about the book and her past and future projects. I was, as always, charmed by her wit, generosity, and empathy.

[Recording begins]

In a different interview, you said you wouldn’t feel any better if Mark was in prison. But you wanted him to make a public apology, especially to his parents because you were close to them. Can you explain more about what would constitute a public apology and why it’s important?

It doesn’t have to be public as in going on social media and telling all of your followers what you did or anything like that. I think of a public apology as making amends by telling the people who were immediately affected within that community—making it known to them. This project is interesting to me because it’s sort of a public apology. It’s a book that’s for public consumption, but his identity is still disguised. I didn’t want it to stay between us. I wanted him to be able to tell. If we keep it private, we’re stigmatizing it more, and then we go on believing that certain people aren’t capable of committing these acts.

Do you think all guys are capable of things like this?

I think some people don’t think they’re capable of it. I hesitate to make absolute claims, but Mark didn’t think he was capable of doing something like that.

The portrayals we tend to see in TV and film come across as guys who would commit assault. Very caricatured figures.

I think all of us have the potential to do terrible things. Some of it is people acting on impulse.

There’s a funny part in the book where your partner suggests surprising the reader by stating, ‘Reader, I had him arrested.’ But if you did bring legal action against him, it would become public. His parents would know about it. Is that something you ever seriously considered?

No, I didn’t consider it. I’m just speaking for my situation—not saying what anyone else should do. I didn’t see how reporting him would do much good. It’s more a comment on how our legal system works. Let’s say Mark were held accountable and went to jail. There’s no formalized system in place to help someone with rehabilitation. Also—I don’t know maybe I’m gullible—but I did get the impression that he felt bad and that this is something he wouldn’t do again, and he genuinely regretted it. I did get that sense from him—

Can I push back against that a bit?

Sure, absolutely.

So let’s say I go outside this bar and punch that guy standing over there. Later, I’ll say to the cops, ‘Oh I felt really bad about that, and I wouldn’t do it again.’ I would still get charged with assault.

[Laughs] Right. Well, so much time has passed. If he were to be held legally accountable for what he did, what system would be in place if he gets locked up? How is that going to prevent him from doing it again except by keeping him behind bars for however long?

I guess someone might say … if they were to critique that—

You can. My opinion about a lot of stuff changes every day.

It might be about deterrence. About other guys. The theory is that if he goes to jail, a potential criminal will see that and not want to do the actions that might lead to jail.

In an ideal world, people wouldn’t be deterred for that reason. They’d be deterred because they wouldn’t want to cause someone harm. It’s a very complicated issue. I just know, for me, the idea of him going away, it just feels so inadequate.

I look at his life, and it’s sad. He was once a friend—I think that’s part of it. Had he been a stranger … it would have been easier for me to be upset. He’s not a friend anymore, but part of me still remembers the person he had been. I don’t know.

So because of your complicated feelings—

Yeah, we need to alleviate the responsibility from victims to have to take revenge, so that we’re not in some Shakespearean drama where there are warring families, and it continues on and on and on.

On the subject of anger, I’ll read a quote to you from the feminist Carol Tarvis. “The individual who forgives for psychological or spiritual reasons ‘lets go’ of useful anger and has less psychic energy to put toward obtaining justice. Although anger can be self-destructive and paralyzing, it also can motivate and engage victims in struggles for justice.” In the book, we see you going back and forth on anger. What are your feelings now that the book is over?

For whatever reason—I don’t mean this as a compliment to myself because I think it’s a flaw—I have trouble being angry.

Part of it also, to be perfectly honest, I’m bored. I’m bored by it because I’ve spent so much time thinking about him. I don’t find him …

You don’t find the subject of your book interesting?

[Laughs] I don’t have nightmares about him anymore. I don’t really think about him anymore. I spent so much time trying to craft a book that it just completely exhausted me. I do get angry on behalf of my students who tell me about their sexual assault. I can get angry on behalf of others, but for whatever reason, I feel bad getting angry …

I know I’m capable of anger because I’m angry at my high school newspaper advisor. I do hope that he reads the book and that people in that situation read the book. I’m angry that he still teaches. [The book also recounts her experience with this creepy teacher]

But for particular anger at Mark … I think he made—feel free to push back on this—an earnest effort at being honest with me when I asked him questions. He tried to make amends, and when I emailed him after the book was done, I checked in to see if he’d read it—again doing the whole caretaking thing—and I said, ‘Look, I know it’s going to be a hard book for you to read…’

‘For you?’ What the … okay sorry, go ahead.

[Laughs] ‘… and I just wanted to let you know in case you want to tell your parents ahead of time.’ People will be able to figure out who he is—anyone from our social network at that time. He did write back. I’ll read you the email.

[Jeannie reads an email from Mark about his family possibly reading the book. He wishes Jeannie well, and says that if his parents find out, so be it.]

That was what I had been looking for. To be open to the possibility of his parents finding out. It helps alleviate some anger that I had started to feel at the end of the project.

I was thinking in such a methodical way of how to piece it together that I was intellectualizing the whole thing, and it was hard to have an accurate sense of my emotions.

I think that quote is absolutely right. I don’t want to forgive someone because I think that will make me feel better. I don’t think that’s legitimate forgiveness. I think that’s fine, but it’s not forgiveness, right?

It’s more about what they do. If they ask for forgiveness.

Exactly. It’s something else and that’s fine, but I don’t think it’s forgiveness unless the person who caused you harm not only asks for forgiveness, but also demonstrates self-awareness and acknowledges that what they did caused harm. They genuinely feel bad and go about demonstrating that in some way. Mark going along with all this, agreeing to all of these interviews, meeting with me, and answering some really intrusive questions—he was demonstrating he felt bad.

I can understand why people would be frustrated with me [laughs]. This is the problem when it’s sexual assault and it’s someone you once cared about. It’s hard to forget the good times—at least for me. He was one of my first best friends, so it’s complicated.

My opinion on a lot of it changes. There might be a day when I’m just completely full of rage and then another day where I think I’m over it. The book might be very different if I returned to it in 10 years.

You write about the experiences of students in your classes that mirror your own. And this book is dedicated to a former student, Hannah. How does teaching students change the process of writing for you?

I love teaching, but of course there are times when I think all I want to do is write. I think teaching helps me with writing because I easily could sequester myself, and it wouldn’t be good or healthy. I would write all the time and not have a whole lot of social interaction, and there’s something intellectually energizing about being around other people who are writers and trying to figure out their own projects. When a student cares about writing and wants to make their work better, I find that inspiring.

And it’s exciting to read books for the first time with students and see their reactions. They notice things that I wouldn’t necessarily notice. For the most part, it does help my writing. I don’t think it would be ideal for me to ever stop. I can’t imagine not teaching to some extent.

I’ve heard you mention that you want men to read the book as well. How has the reaction been from them so far? Any interesting stories in general?

So, I’ve gotten letters from prisoners sent to my Towson mailing address. The latest letter I got was from a man who raped more than one woman over the years. He was reflecting on how his behavior worsened and how he never thought of some of these encounters as rape. He was a graduate student who lorded his position over undergrads. As a TA he would make it clear to them that sleeping with him might help them get ahead.

But he didn’t consider that bad at the time. He says prison has given him time to reflect, and he sees how terrible all of that was. But he was someone who never thought he was capable of that.

And someone else emailed my agent, wanting to get in touch with me. He was someone who committed rape and has apologized to the person he harmed, and he’s made it known to future partners of his that he’s done this before, and he’s very open. I didn’t want to open up that correspondence. So I haven’t replied to any of the men who reached out to me with their stories.

I thought one of the bravest things in the book was sharing the full transcripts of conversations with Mark. Often we like to edit how we sound. Is that something you planned early in the writing process?

I think it occurred naturally. Rarely when I’m writing am I planning anything. It’s why doing interviews is hard. Whenever I’m asked questions about craft, there is the impulse to sound smart and to isolate some techniques and intellectualize them. But ultimately when I’m writing, I’m operating by gut, not by brain. I’m just writing. 

I figured I would use the transcripts after that first phone call, and then it made sense to break them apart into chunks.

I agree with you. For me, it’s good to look at technique at a different time.

Exactly.

If I try to think about how I’m going to use this … it doesn’t work.

It was so mechanical for me when I was an undergrad. I read these writing handbooks like Janet Burroway’s Writing Fiction and Mary Kinzie’s A Poet’s Guide to Poetry—both great books, but I would freeze while trying to write because I would think about breaking things up technically, and then the prose would turn blue and die. It was technical, but it didn’t produce an emotion because I was thinking too much about craft.

I try to be very self-aware about the feedback I give students. I might fixate on a lack of reflection that I’m seeing in multiple pieces. If I give the same feedback to multiple students, I start thinking, ‘Oh, that’s an issue in my own work.’

It’s like a fiction writer whose characters keep saying things like, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what’s going on here.” It’s really the writer who doesn’t know.

Right. That’s useful for my writing.

Do you think about readers when you’re writing, about how they will react?

Definitely when I’m revising. One of my main concerns is if I’m being boring. I don’t want someone to put the book down out of boredom. If they put it down, I want it to be because it’s emotionally draining in a good way.

I read it in two days, so it’s definitely not boring.

[Laughs] Thanks. With this book, I was thinking about readers a lot. I was just thinking, ‘Oh my god, people are gonna be so mad at me.’

Have you gotten hate mail?

Yeah, that’s why I removed my contact info. I got a really mean piece of hate mail, and it said that what I was doing was going to harm rape survivors. I laughed though because she said, ‘I hope you make a lot of money from this book.’

Well, that’s nice of her.

[Laughs] I wrote a formally inventive memoir layered with a meta-narrative and sold it to an independent publisher based in Portland, Oregon because I was trying to make money from the book.

It could happen.

But in terms of readers … I was afraid of people being angry, and I’m not good at dealing with people who are angry at me. I just feel terrible.

Really?

Yeah, I want everyone to like me. [Laughs] Of course.

And you don’t get angry often either?

I definitely get angry. I’m capable of anger.

I’ve never seen you angry, have I?

Maybe. No wait, why would I have gotten angry at your class? You all did the reading! I did get angry at an undergrad who said that women have different brains than men and that’s why we don’t make sense and why we jump from topic to topic. I got mad at him for that … going on about it class, but generally … I’m sorry what was the question?

[Laughs] It was … do you think about readers?

I have to resist sometimes. I made the mistake of checking some online reviews recently, and I got so down. When people are mean they can be really mean online. And that’s hard. I feel like it’s fair for someone to not like it—that’s okay. I don’t expect everyone to like it, but it’s just the level of nastiness to some reviews …

That seems weird to me. As you said, it’s an indie book. How are they even getting the book to get outraged about it? I spent 30 bucks …

[Laughs] You can’t control how someone reads it, but a reviewer wrote … I don’t even want to think about it.

On Goodreads or Amazon?

Both [laughs]. The downside with having removed my email address is not getting the responses from readers. After The Glass Eye came out, it was amazing getting these responses from readers, and now I’m not on social media, and I don’t have my email, so I miss that.

That’s what’s fun about going to readings: having people come up to me and talk to me.

So you said you got angry at Mark?

Yes, I did.

So I’m interested, by the end of the book, what were your thoughts?

My assessment of Mark?

Yeah.

You said something about him stealing things, that it was a precursor …

Yeah, he said he stole things, little things, to see what he could get away with.

That would explain why he thought he might get away with it. It doesn’t explain why he would do it. The only way you could is if he viewed you as an object and not as his friend, however briefly. I think he resented you in some way because he was attracted to you and you weren’t with him. It is sexual though. He could have stolen money from your purse instead.

I think that’s fair. I am interested if people disagree with me or my tactics. It’s a memoir, so it’s not an authoritative guide. It’s just my reaction to an event.

Also, I don’t know him at all.

Yeah but that’s okay. It’s fascinating when people have different reactions. I’m not saying that my reaction is the right one, it’s just how I think—how I thought and feel. How I think and feel may change.

I wanted the book to be participatory by including the transcripts and including my friends’ thoughts about all of it. I wanted the reader to feel like they were a character, that they’re also hearing about the transcripts, and that they can have the conversations too.

Interesting. I think he’s very passive. Like even that email, ‘so be it.’ In the transcripts, he’s constantly shadowing, repeating you. Give me an opinion of yours, just as an example.

Uh … I hope Trump gets impeached.

I totally feel the same way, and I’m glad you said that. That’s how he sounds all the time. Constant, approval-seeking. I don’t know if he really agrees with you. He might be saying whatever he thinks you want to hear.

That’s interesting.

Even agreeing to the interview … what else has he got going on? Being the subject of a book … even the anxiety from that might be more exciting than the banality of his life.

I do wonder if he’s worried about his parents reading it. I was at a student event in Madison, Wisconsin, and someone involved with getting books in the libraries said that she had received requests from the Sandusky Library for copies of the book. His dad does go to that library a lot, so I wonder if they’ve read it. I usually assume people aren’t reading it [laughs].

Did you read it as—I realize I’m turning the interview around—did you read it as a revenge book? I made the mistake of going online and checking reviews, and someone said they wouldn’t have read it had they known it was revenge book.

No, it’s not, I was just thinking of his worst nightmare perspective.

Okay, good.

In the book you wrote, “At the risk of sounding sentimental, here’s what I’m learning. This book isn’t just about my friendship with Mark. It’s about my friendships with other women.” Do you see a connection between what is derided as sentimental and the masculine curriculum that people have to go through as an undergraduate on their way up? In other words, are these lines actually sentimental?

That’s a good question. I’m all about risking sentimentality. People write for different reasons—some to produce an intellectual effect. When I’m writing, I want to produce an emotional and an intellectual effect. An important part of doing that is taking risks, letting yourself write badly. I acknowledge the potential for sentimentality as a defensive technique. If a reader thinks I’m being sentimental, I can say that I was aware of that.

A lot of sentimentality has to do with unearned emotion, an emotion that hasn’t been set up with enough context so that the reader will feel it. If you set up the context, you can produce emotion without having empty sentiments.

Have you changed the way that you critique things over time?

Because I teach nonfiction, if a student writes a scene of rape, I would never say they need more scene-setting in a blunt way. A lot of my students are writing about sensitive and traumatic material, and so I tend to just ask questions.

I might ask, why did you put this here? I try to find a way to ask a question that will get them to a new place.

You’re aware of what they need to fix it, but you do it in a way so that they realize it themselves?

Yeah, I try to do it so that it’s leading them there rather than telling them what to do. That’s what a good editor will do. They won’t say, do this and don’t do this. Good questions are the best form of constructive criticism.

Now that you’ve published two books, do you think of each book as standing on its own or do you want them to be seen as connected?

I think they could definitely be read together. In the first book, this is all in one page, a single scene. From a craft point of view, writers don’t have to put everything into their first book. You could open up something within that first book into its own story.

But I would love for people who liked this to read The Glass Eye.

Recently, I was talking to a writer friend about this. Someone had mentioned that they liked my first book, but this book really outdid it. I’m grateful for that, but the first book was a deathbed promise to my dad. I said if I write that book, I’ll be happy. I arranged my life so that I could finish a book for my dad.

There are things I probably would change about that book—I haven’t gone back and looked at it, but it was the best I could do at the time. It’s not that The Glass Eye is the book I think is better. But I cared so much about it, and I have trouble imagining caring about another book as much as I cared about that one.

Now you hate when people say this new one is better.

[Laughs] No, I was feeling really down about this book.

Why?

I don’t know. I wrote it pretty quickly. I didn’t have a whole lot of confidence in this book. I didn’t think I could spend—emotionally—any more time with it. And if I had waited, my feelings would have changed.

Okay so … next book?

[Laughs] Oh god. You’re a writer, you know that’s cruel.

Whaddya mean? I remember you saying it was going to be essays or something.

I thought that. My editor and I, we’re talking … I don’t know. I had an idea for something. It still feels like homework to me. I think it’s …

What is it? Tell us. We need to know.

I’m probably not gonna do it. The working title is … well. Don’t include this, but I’ll tell you …

[CLASSIFIED]

… but what I’m actually interested in doing—you can include this—is taking a topic that someone would hear and think, that’s a terrible idea; no one would want to read about that; that sounds so boring. And to make it interesting. I would love to take a seemingly boring topic, and have that trigger new ideas and see where it goes to find the true subject.

Like what would be an example?

Writing about my cat, Flannery. The one who is sick.

Oh yeah, right. But that’s not boring.

A lot of people might think so if I were to say my third book is going to be about my cat [laughs]. But I’m just sitting with her every day for at least six hours, feeding her through this tube in her neck, and I have a stopwatch going, and I’m contemplating time, and my mind is wondering.

She has pet insurance, which has been a huge help. It’s better than most human insurance. A $500 deductible, and then they cover 70% of everything else. I pay like 20 bucks a month for it. So, I’m thinking about health insurance, our mortality, and self-awareness. And there’s no way of knowing what she is thinking and feeling. How do we determine a life is worth living? Some people get angry finding out that my cat is getting better medical care than most people, and I understand that.

I use a credit card for it—it’s not real money. I tell myself that capitalism is a performance art project until someone comes to take away my house.

I took her to the animal hospital yesterday because a vet had recommended it. So we drove her to Columbia, Maryland. But I also don’t want to put her through needless amounts of pain. I don’t want to be selfish.

So, I’m having all of these thoughts that can branch out into bigger things. I don’t know if I’m going to be writing about my cat. Nothing may come of it, but I do feel drawn to that right now.

Any last words or advice you could give to aspiring writers?

So, you were my student, what would you say from having been in that class? What were the most useful… was there anything useful [laughs]? And if so, what would that be?

Your comments were very useful and inspiring. And sometimes other students’ comments were useful. Try different structures and play around with arrangement. And you don’t have to agree with the feedback.

I try to spin it and make it useful. If someone tells you that something doesn’t work, but then you think it does work, doesn’t that also feel good? Not everyone is going to like what you do. That’s impossible.

It gives you more confidence.

Yeah, because then you have to think about why it works.

As long as you can articulate a reason why, I think you’re doing okay, but you also shouldn’t keep everything in your own world.

I think it’s so important to let yourself write badly. It’s something I wish I had done with The Glass Eye. If you keep trying to make something perfect before moving on, it won’t work. There are some changes you can’t see as necessary until you have the full piece. Everybody works differently, but for me, it’s helpful to just plow forward and tell myself I can fix this later.

The Glass Eye was tough because I worked on it for so long that the voice changed, the tone and the style shifted. I had new thoughts and feelings, so it was tough to find my narrative voice. Not to say everyone should speed write a book. But move forward with the understanding that you can go back and revise. It’s basic advice, but it’s advice that’s hard to take.

Do you set a specific word count per day or anything like that?

No. And I haven’t written in … it’s been months. While promoting the book, I wished I had another project in mind.

But you do … the cat.

That was just the other day. I said fuck it, I’m writing about my cat. I tend not to do a word count. When I get stuck I read. I read as much as I can, and I read literary magazines all the time.

I think that’s about it …

Those were good questions, thank you. So you’ll transcribe it?

That’s the theory. Let me see … do you—

[Recording ends]

I like that the audio ends mid-sentence. Our conversation continued for another hour, touching too many topics beyond the book, but the transcript shows, reflects within itself, there is always more to say.