FORMATION :: Ryan Leigh Dostie

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

It's difficult to find a single quote to quantify the anger that sticks in one's craw while reading Ryan Leigh Dostie's Formation: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line. The sheer number, along with Dostie's evocative recounting, renders it impossible. Examples include tried-and-trues such as: "It's your word against his" and "Are you sure you want to ruin this guy's life?"

"Unsubstantiated" was the term used by Dostie's captain to announce to her entire army company the result of an "investigation" into her rape by a fellow soldier. Hesitant to report, Dostie turned to her command, the "father figures" and "abstract constructs of justice and integrity" who were supposed to protect her, only to have them stonily and resoundingly tell her, "No."

Neither Dostie nor her memoir is defined by her rape, but it viscerally informs them. A Persian-Farsi linguist in military intelligence, Dostie ships off with her unit to Iraq not long after 9/11 (and her rape). As she navigated the testosterone-laden hierarchy as a female soldier and isolated trauma survivor, her sense of self was further eroded. She over-ate to create a shield of her body and began cutting to find relief.

Threading back through Dostie's upbringing in a Christian cult to her life after the army, Formation delves brilliantly into the Venn diagram of trauma, patriarchy, the military and what it means to be a woman at the center. Growing up, Dostie thought she might want to write crime fiction. Instead, life handed her a personal true crime one wishes had been the product of her imagination.

STREET SENSE: All stories like Dostie's are enraging. Hers is particularly well-written and complex. With the added layer of being raised in a cult with a female power structure, she was perhaps less prepared for the patriarchy of the military (in the manner of speaking that she might not have foreseen the reaction to her case, not that she f'ing should have been more prepared - oh for the day when our girls don't have to be prepared). I can't even begin to express how much the events of this book torqued my shorts, as should they everyone's. But I also got lost in Dostie's intellect and insight, her ability to put on paper what happened, and is happening, to her. No easy task and particularly well done. Highly recommended.

A FAVORITE PASSAGE:  I imagine an attempted rape while I walk here in the dark, where men think to violate me and I envision each try ending with brutality as I thwart them, again and again, each fantasy a shock of lovely adrenaline, as if I can rewrite my own narrative, begging for it to happen again so I can revise how it ended, give myself the happily ever after. I imagine clumps of flesh and body parts on the pavement. [Note: the next passage goes into great detail about the violence Dostie dreams of and I almost included the whole thing but ended up feeling it was too long for a blog quote. But please, pick up the book and get to the rest of it. Powerful work.]

COVER NERD SAYS:  This is one of my favorite covers of the year thus far. It's crisp and clean and the fonts are just right. I'm not a fan of cover blurbs, but at least this one is as about as small as they come and doesn't outweigh the title, subtitle or author name. And that image. Simply genius. A true testament to the idea that you don't need a lot to get the message across. I could go on, but you get the message.