Unspeakable ThingsUnspeakable Things

In 2017, Brooke Nevils made a confidential HR complaint about one of the most powerful and familiar faces in media. Twenty-four hours later, the highest paid morning news anchor in history, Matt Lauer, was fired, stunning millions of Americans in one of the MeToo era's defining stories. Demanding answers and the intimate details of the most personal and painful humiliation of her life, the press soon discovered her identity. As MeToo unfolded, Brooke learned that messy stories like hers were far from the exception, and that nearly everything she'd believed about sexual harassment and assault and how victims react to it was wrong. Through interviews with leading clinicians, forensic professionals, attorneys, and frontline researchers, this book challenges our understanding of consent, power, and the lingering, often misunderstood effects of trauma and shame. Despite its rarefied setting at the height of fame, power, and American media, Brooke's story serves as a textbook example of anall-too-common scenario that continues to devastate lives and enable abusers.