Testimony

When Rachel Denhollander stood during Dr. Larry Nassar's sentencing hearing in January 2018 and spoke of his abuse, its effects on her and on his hundreds of other victims, she included notes of her pity for him and hopes he would seek forgiveness for his wrong, because she knew that God would accept his genuine repentance as he accepts any who repent. Many Christian writers highlighted her words, even though they had to squirm a little uncomfortably later when Denhollander described how her own church did not support her stands on dealing with the reality of abusers in their midst.

Both aspects of this story are laid out in her 2019 memoir, What Is a Girl Worth? which she titled based on a phrase and idea from her victim impact statement. She asked the judge in the case to impose the maximum sentence possible on Nassar as a sign to other abused and assaulted women and girls that they were not worthless, despite their treatment by those who exploited and manipulated them.

Denhollander doesn't limit her book to just the time she spent competing in gymnastics and was Nassar's victim, and then the later years of the trial and its impact on Nassar's employer, Michigan State University and the United States Gymnastics Association which used him as a staff physician. She offers a brief sketch of her career as a gymnast, including the nagging injuries that developed for which she was sent to Nassar for treatment. She also outlines how she met and then developed a relationship with her husband, trying to describe how the abuse she suffered at 15 affected her ability to trust and relate to him. She notes that the long-distance quality of their relationship may have actually helped them because they could advance in levels of intimacy at a distance that didn't set off as many of her alarms and flight responses.

When the story gets to the initial newspaper account about Nassar that began to uncover the depth of his crimes and the complicity of supposedly controlling organizations in covering up the abuse, Denhollander moves to more of a diary format, walking through the phases that moved from news story to accusation to trial to testimony and then to her sentencing speech. Here her voice is that of a strong adult rather than a victimized child; her abuse affected who she is and left her with scars that may not disappear for a long time but it does not define her. She can note the irony her discovery that her research on the therapy Nassar claimed he was using meant that she knows more about it than he ever did, since nothing of how he abused his victims is a part of that technique.

The story may seem a little unfocused to some readers, but Denhollander wants to try to answer people who legitimately wonder how abuse victims such as herself don't go to authorities and how the abusers might get away with their crimes in full view of parents, guardians or chaperones. She offers a powerful story of how predators such as Nassar capitalize on the trust of their positions and the desire of good people to believe that no one could really be that kind of a monster. She also highlights how his enablers, even though they might have been deceived themselves, can effectively render the powerlessness victims feel permanent by not fulfilling their roles of governance and protection.

Her book is something of a hybrid of reporting and memoir, an attempt to show the impact of these events on a larger public scale and on her own personal history. It includes the significant role played by her faith, both as a place of unfortunate human failing and the eventual source of the true answer to her title question: Everything.