About this item
A powerful memoir about a young woman's toxic relationship with her mentor, an acclaimed professor, whose dark, stalking obsession altered her future forever.Donna Freitas has lived two lives. In one life, she is a well-published author and respected scholar who has traveled around the country speaking about Title IX, consent, religion, and sex on college campuses. In the other, she is a victim, a woman who suffered and suffers still because she was stalked by her graduate professor for more than two years. As a doctoral candidate, Freitas loved asking big questions, challenging established theories and sinking her teeth into sacred texts. She felt at home in the library, and safe in the book-lined offices of scholars whom she admired. But during her first year, one particular scholar became obsessed with Freitas' academic enthusiasm. He filled her student mailbox with letters and articles. He lurked on the sidewalk outside her apartment. He called daily and left nagging voicemails. He befriended her mother, and made himself comfortable in her family's home. He wouldn't go away. While his attraction was not overtly sexual, it was undeniably inappropriate, and most importantly--unwanted. In Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention, Donna Freitas delivers a forensic examination of the years she spent stalked by her professor, and uses her nightmarish experience to examine the ways in which we stigmatize, debate, and attempt to understand consent today.
About the Author
THE NINE LIVES OF ROSE NAPOLITANO is Donna Freitas's first adult novel. She has spoken at nearly two hundred colleges and universities about her nonfiction work. She is the author of CONSENT: A MEMOIR OF UNWANTED ATTENTION, as well as ten novels for children and young adults. Donna has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe, and she has appeared on radio and television, from NPR's All Things Considered to The Today Show. She has been a professor at Boston University and Hofstra University, and is currently a member of the faculty at Fairleigh Dickinson University's MFA program. Learn more at www.donnafreitas.com
