The writer and activist V, formerly known as Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues; The Apology), had "moved from country to country, speech to speech, play to play" for years. But when the world went into lockdown, she was confronted with the quiet of her home and the roar of her own mind. The result is Reckoning, a collection of poems, miniature plays, essays, letters, previously published articles and photographs that demand as much unflinching strength from the reader as the author. The ultimate impact of the book is occasionally startling, often profound.
V writes in Reckoning's opening pages, "It's only in our willingness to face the music, walk through the fire, confront the truth head-on that we are born into ourselves, one another, and a livable future." She leads by example, plumbing the depths of her memories for the most aching material: her father's abuse; the apathy and agony of her mother; the tumult and pleasures of her past romances; the friendships she has forged across continents; and her life-long struggle to make peace with her own body. "Writing saved me from suicide, from madness," she tells readers.
At the heart of Reckoning is violence--particularly against women--and the chaos it sows should it go unaddressed, never confronted and never healed. In its moments of celebration, especially, Reckoning is as stirring as a chorus. V's non-media enterprises (One Billion Rising and V-Day, both global campaigns to end violence against women; and City of Joy, a Congo-based center for female survivors of violence) represent the public culmination of her personal efforts--the result of her own reckoning--and that is, ultimately, what resonates best in this collection. --Lauren Puckett-Pope