"One Way Back" by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Book Review

 

"One Way Back" is a good book. It's not just a "celebrity memoir." Even if author Dr. Christine Blasey Ford were not famous, this book would be worth reading. It's well-written and like any good book it causes the reader to feel, to think, and to understand the human race a bit better. "One Way Back" is also brief and an easy read. The sentences are short and the vocabulary is basic.
 
"One Way Back" is no less beautiful for its ease of reading. Ford uses surfing as her overarching metaphor. Surfing is dangerous but it is also, for the surfer, like life itself. Yes, it entails risk, but in undertaking that risk the surfer enhances the experience of being alive. The book's title, "One Way Back," is a reference to surfing. The surfer paddles out into the ocean, and must ride the wave the ocean presents. There's only one way back to shore – riding the wave that life hands you.

 

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was not famous before summer, 2018. US President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS. Ford contacted her elected officials to report that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her at an informal high school gathering when she was 15 and he was 17. Ford passed a lie detector test administered by a former FBI agent. Ford was asked to testify before the Senate, and she did. In initial reactions, even FOX news, and, indeed, even Donald Trump himself assessed Ford as credible.

 

Later, the White House devised a strategy whereby Brett Kavanaugh would perform an opera similar to the one presented by the similarly accused Clarence Thomas. Thomas claimed he was a victim of a "high tech lynching." Kavanaugh said, "This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election … revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups." What Kavanaugh said here was not true. Kavanaugh spoke other untruths, see, for example, his untrue comments about "boof," about "Devil's Triangle," and about how much he drank and what parties he attended. He spoke these untruths while under oath.

 

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and her family have been subjected to murderous harassment ever since. She has had to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars in security fees. For the past six years, people have been actively threatening to kill her and her children. Even animals are subjected to this rage. Dead animals have been thrown onto her property. Brett Kavanaugh has a lifetime ride on the SCOTUS, a position as close to royalty as America awards.

 

"One Way Back" is a quiet book. Dr. Ford records these events, but quietly. She never adopts the histrionic, fever pitch screech of Kavanaugh in his testimony, revealing temperament so totally unworthy of a judge that Saturday Night Live parodied it in one of their most popular routines.

 

Rather we get an account of a woman who apparently never wanted the spotlight, but who marched – or surfed – into it when she thought doing so was her civic duty.

 

I liked this book, but I didn't feel that I could ever get close to Dr. Ford. She is very unlike me. Her father was a self-made man. He was successful enough that he managed to send his three children to exclusive prep schools and to see them go on to advanced degrees and successful careers.

 

Young Christine didn't have to work. She went to an exclusive prep school and spent her extracurricular hours swimming and diving. It seems that her dad bankrolled her advanced education that included time spent in Hawaii. With that foundation, Dr. Ford became a successful professor and employee at two California universities. She is happily married and her sons followed her into the water and she spent her summers standing by as they received training at the beach.

 

Dr. Ford is frank about how she differs from others. She is a very sensitive person and she sometimes feels shy and out of place with others' values. Reading about her decision to come forward, I felt as if I were reading about Dr. Ford being put through a food processor. So many different people gave her so much different advice. Testify, don't testify, protect yourself above all, do your civic duty above all, align yourself with this or that person … it must have been hell for her. Through it all, she was true to her own sense of civic duty. And for that unhinged, hateful misogynists defame her and encourage really bad people to continue to threaten her life and the life of her children.

 

Ford's misogynist enemies lie about her. Many of those lies have found their way into influential publications. "One Way Back" corrects those lies. Read the book.

 

Finally – Thank you Dr. Ford.