Know My Name

One January night, Chanel Miller joined her sister and a friend at a party at Stanford. She was drinking and being goofy–and that’s the last she remembers. She woke up in the hospital the following day and learned of her sexual assault. The perpetrator, Brock Turner, had been stopped and chased down by two men.
This event changes Miller’s life. Known by the public as “Emily Doe,” the case consumed her for several years as she navigated a criminal justice system that seemed designed to implicate her and traumatize her all over again. Finally, from the veil of anonymity, Miller emerges with her own voice and shares this gut-punch of a memoir.
Miller is an extraordinary writer–her writing is deeply personal and achingly raw. She puts to words how the assault and ongoing violations affected her in ways that feel both intimate and universal to so many women.
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Publisher’s Description
She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford’s campus. Her victim impact statement was posted on BuzzFeed, where it instantly went viral–viewed by eleven million people within four days, it was translated globally and read on the floor of Congress; it inspired changes in California law and the recall of the judge in the case. Thousands wrote to say that she had given them the courage to share their own experiences of assault for the first time. Now she reclaims her identity to tell her story of trauma, transcendence, and the power of words. It was the perfect case, in many ways–there were eyewitnesses, Turner ran away, physical evidence was immediately secured. But her struggles with isolation and shame during the aftermath and the trial reveal the oppression victims face in even the best-case scenarios. Her story illuminates a culture biased to protect perpetrators, indicts a criminal justice system designed to fail the most vulnerable, and, ultimately, shines with the courage required to move through suffering and live a full and beautiful life. Know My Name will forever transform the way we think about sexual assault, challenging our beliefs about what is acceptable and speaking truth to the tumultuous reality of healing. It also introduces readers to an extraordinary writer, one whose words have already changed our world. Entwining pain, resilience, and humor, this memoir will stand as a modern classic.