In Karen Palmer’s text The Reader Is the Protagonist, Palmer highlights the rather unbelievable arc her life has taken. She describes her experience having to pack up and leave her life in California to escape an abusive situation and find new roots in Boulder, Colorado. Palmer refers to this abrupt life change as “do-it-yourself witness protection” (Palmer 192). She, her new husband, and her daughters all had to completely change their identities and could not tell any of their friends or family where they were going or what had happened to them. Palmer later reveals that these drastic measures were taken because her ex-husband had begun stalking her and had kidnapped their youngest daughter. Throughout the text, Palmer explains how this history affects the ways in which her life can progress and not progress in this new space. She talks about interviewing for a company called Paladin Press and how she was afraid to interview because she was not sure what she would do if she were asked to give references. She also expresses her worry towards the fact that this publishing company chooses to publish information and guides on things such as how to disappear and how to kill someone and not get caught.
In each step of the process of assimilating to a new style of life, the reader is able to see Palmer’s discomfort, however it is perhaps most prevalent when she brings up the topic of reading. One of her daughters asks Palmer to read them all a bed-time story, to which Palmer replies “Reading to my children– that, I could manage,” indicating that even something as seemingly simple and mundane as sharing a bed-time story had become warped for her by her trauma (Palmer 193). This appears again when she interviews for Paladin as she experiences difficulty correcting the grammatical errors in the manuscript they hand her, saying to herself, “I really can’t read” (Palmer 196). Towards the end of the essay, she reveals to us that reading had always been something important to her, something that had gotten her through several other hardships in her life, but that after experiencing the trauma with her ex-husband, she has not picked up a book to read for herself since. Palmer’s essay describes the ways in which trauma can take form in unexpected ways and can affect the parts of one’s life that no one would think to put a trigger warning on.
Questions for the reader:
- In what ways does Palmer’s essay reflect the structure of a novel? (talk about her sense of character, the narrative structure she uses, her inclusion of factual detail to forward the plot of her story, the nonlinear timeline, etc.)
- In what other ways do we see Palmer’s trauma reflected in the narrative?
- Do you feel that the point of her essay was made apparent to the reader? What did she do well? What could she have done better? What was confusing? What worked?
The discussion continues on Christina’s blog here!
Advanced Composition 
I like the idea of considering this to have the energy of a novel; it certainly has the plot, and backstory, to engage a reader. I also think the children’s book, The Monster as the End of This Book, epitomizes the trajectory of the plot. First of all, it’s just a great book. I wonder if anyone else has read it. Second, the person you’re most afraid of is yourself. While Palmer’s fear is very real, a lot of what she seems to be unsure of is herself, even doubting, understandably, her take on her ex-husband’s confession. Some nice thoughts in your post.
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I read this essay with much more focus on Palmer’s comfortability with working for Paladin Press. I was thinking mostly about what it means to work for a company that publishes morally grey books, especially when you have trauma connected to that. She says, on one hand, she’s a defender of free-speech 100% but on the other, she knows words can really hurt people. The focus on what words mean and why it matters in the context of life as a human is the most interesting part to me, because even if it’s not explicit like in “The monster at the end of this book”, the reader really is the protagonist because reading will always be about our personal journey through the book (in a meta sort of way).
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The structure to me was fantastic it started out with them leaving california and getting to colorado. It then goes into detail about what happened to her. Then it goes to the drug store and keeps on flip flopping back and forth. I liked this because it told me what is happening in the moment because of what happened and walks me through it. Whats weird is that in high school we actually learned about this case in criminal justice class. We watched an episode of a tv show but it was this case that was in the story. I feel like its reflected when she reads the book The Monster at the End of This Book and how she relates to it while reading to her daughters. She associates books with something thats of leisure or something normal in her life. That is clear when she says “I had two daughters to protect, and things I’d once believed essential had fallen away. Books were among the abandon;” . So for here to clutch a book under her arm at the end of the story is significant because she is acting normal again. Back to a time where the incident. I don’t really know what the message was other than books can change moods and even bring a sense of normalcy or escape. I really liked this story it was very easy to read.
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Palmer’s essay does reflect the structure of a novel in that the people are introduced as characters and the essay is structured as a story. The setting is clearly illustrated throughout, providing the audience with a clear image of what is occurring. The nonlinear timeline reflected qualities of a film, as though the reader is living through the experience with her. These qualities enhanced the essay and gave it characteristics that mirror those of a novel. Palmer is very descriptive when illustrating the traumatic events that happened to her. The comparison on page 198 is used to describe what her ex-husband did when he said, “it was easy…like tossing a piece of trash,”. The nonlinear timeline worked really well in this piece, for it caught the attention of the audience and made the reader feel as if they were experiencing the story the same way Palmer did at the time the events took place. The imagery worked well also, for the author created a very clear image for the reader in order to depict the characters and the setting.
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