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Jessica Knoll: Author Of ‘Luckiest Girl Alive’ Opens Up About Being Raped As A Teen

By Leigh Egan
Published on: 04:30 PST, Mar 29, 2016

Jessica Knoll, the author of the best-selling novel Luckiest Girl Alive, opened up on Tuesday about her own rape and how she based the protagonist in her book off of her own life experience.

People reports that Knoll wrote an emotional essay about being gang-raped as a teenager, a devastating event that’s left her haunted and scarred. The essay was published in Lena Dunham’s Lenny Letter, a website dedicated to empowering women through weekly newsletters. It’s the first time the author has opened up about what happened to her before she was even old enough to drive. She decided to reveal it in her essay because she wants to be able to answer questions honestly as she sets out on an upcoming book tour.

“I’ve been running and I’ve been ducking and I’ve been dodging because I’m scared. I’m scared people won’t call what happened to me rape because for a long time, no one did. But as I gear up for my paperback tour, and as I brace myself for the women who ask me, in nervous, brave tones, what I meant by my dedication, what do I know? I had a simple, powerful revelation: everyone is calling it rape now.”

Knoll also realized that there’s no need to hold her head in shame for something that wasn’t her fault.

“There’s no reason to cover my head. There’s no reason I shouldn’t say what I know.”

The best-selling novelist wrote how the details of the excruciating event are similar to what happened to TifAni FaNelli (Ani), the protagonist in Luckiest Girl Alive. Similar to Ani, Knoll remains a prisoner to her past, as she’s still traumatized by being raped by three boys at a high school party. Both Ani and Knoll are products of a suburban upbringing and both worked as a magazine editor (Knoll is a former editor of Cosmopolitan magazine).

Knoll wrote, “I know that I went to a party at which the ratio of guys to girls was not in my favor, where I drank, flirted with A Boy, was dazzled by A Boy, drank some more, and slipped away from the waking world.”

Knoll admits that she wasn’t sure herself at first if she was raped. It took the work of her therapist and her literary agent, many years after the ordeal happened, to convince her that what happened to her was indeed rape and against her will.

“The first person to tell me I was gang-raped was a therapist, seven years after the fact. The second was my literary agent, five years later, only she wasn’t talking about me. She was talking about Ani, the protagonist of my novel, Luckiest Girl Alive, which is a work of fiction. What I’ve kept to myself, up until today, is that its inspiration is not.”

The incident resulted in some classmates calling Knoll a “slut” at school, but the hurtful words gave her the strength to go into “survival mode” during her remaining years at high school. When she graduated, she reinvented herself. Yet, despite her success, Knoll wrote that she knew the only way to truly heal is to open up about what happened.

“I’m not fine. It’s not fine. But it’s finally the truth, it’s what I know, and that’s a start.”

Jessica Knoll will kick off her book tour on April 6, when she makes an appearance at Barnes & Noble on 150 East 86th Street in NYC. To see if the acclaimed author is coming to your city, check out her official Events page. Click here to read Knoll’s full essay.

[Image via Simon & Schuster]

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