It’s a sad book. The sadness isn’t only in the book but all round it. Virginia Giuffre’s memoir of her life as a victim and survivor of repeated sexual abuse, often at the hands of very powerful people, is an important book. It needed to be written, and only someone like Giuffre, who had lived through such things, could have written it. And it needs to be read. Giuffre lived through sexual abuse at the hands of her father, her father’s friend, Forrest, French model scout Jean-Luc Brunel, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, the person they used to call Prince Andrew (before Giuffre’s exposure of him led to his title being stripped), and many others. The overarching goal of her life after the end of that abuse was to tell her story as honestly and accurately as she could manage it and to be heard with a sympathetic ear.
Reading Nobody’s Girl is an exercise both in reading and in bearing witness. Both are important.
Giuffre died, at her own hand, shortly before the book was published. She made clear to her publishers and collaborators that she wanted the book to come out. The book mentions that Giuffre had survived some suicide attempts in her youth and two close to the end of her narrative. She also notes her desire to put thoughts of self-destruction behind and move on, focussing on her family. But it didn’t work out that way. Throughout the book, Giuffre describes family life with her husband, Robert, and children as a counterbalance to her life battling monsters like Epstein and Maxwell. And I’m sure it was. Family life can certainly be a source of strength. But, for Giuffre, there were also monsters closer to home. It came out, shortly before the publication of the memoir, that her husband had repeatedly, physically abused her. And their life, especially in the final years of Giuffre’s short life, was punctuated by turmoil. At the time of her death, she was involved in a custody dispute and did not have custody of her children. It’s not hard to imagine how the whole thing must have been overwhelming.
The narrative moves back and forth between between Giuffre’s present-day, family life with her husband and children and the horrors of her past, until we are brought up to speed. From about the halfway point on, the story moves back and forth between stories of family life and Giuffre’s involvement in various trials, interviews, and other advocacy work on behalf of herself and other woman who have been victimized by Epstein. In the early part of the book, one suspects this narrative device is to give readers a break from the harsh reality of Giuffre’s childhood and early adulthood. It’s an effective strategy though, at times, a bit jarring. As the narrative moves along, things are more chronological, and the sifting from joys and challenges of home to attempts to bring Epstein, Maxwell, and others to justice works nicely, especially if one doesn’t know that Robert Giuffre is the sort of son of a bitch who beats his wife.
Giuffre’s book—and her work outside of it—document a sordid and all-to-real world where men, and some women, with sufficient money and the power it brings do what they want and justify it to themselves with all manner of pseudo-philosophical nonsense. Epstein, who had enough money to fly to Paris every day for lunch, if he had wanted to, preferred other “entertainments,” and enjoyed making the same available to his guests. He spent so much time on such endeavors its hard to see how he fit in his financial work to keep it all going. Such documents are important. They shine a light into dark corners still very much in need of it.