SIRI HUSTVEDT, THE SUBTLE

" 'Once upon a time' becomes 'once upon no time'. Trauma memory has no narration. Stories always take place in time. They have a sequence, and they are always behind us. Those four nights of reenactment were wordless. I could not say, Oh, yes, that happened four days ago when my husband, daughter, our dog, and I were driving home from the country. A speeding van hit us at an intersection. The car was completely destroyed but we survived. The experience has no context, no place, and has it has in no way diminished by distance. The violence burst into my sleep nowhere and shocked me with the same force as the accident itself."

Siri Hustvedt, The shaking woman or A history of my nerves