Book Review: “The Director: A Memoir” by J.K. Stein
In today’s #TimesUp and #MeToo movements, “The Director,” by J. K. Stein, proves its relevance with every page.
“The Director tells the story of the author. J.K. Stein, who goes by “J”, is a graduate student in New York City. She faces a lot of problems without the sting of term papers and recitation, including anorexia and bulimia nervosa. In the midst of these struggles, she meets a man who she calls The Director.
The Director is famous, Stein makes that very clear. But she changes his and many character, names to maintain anonymity.
Many of their meetings are held at the prestigious Harvard Club in Manhattan. He constantly name drops and tells egocentric stories of celebrities that Stein can never recognize. The Director is unwarrantedly sexual in all aspects, constantly reminding J of who he has slept with and how he believes sensuality is power. J even mentions how she saw that he was ranked the “#1 most perverted person in cinema” in a popular magazine.
The Director proposes that J star in his next movie, which he is currently writing. She is obviously excited by this offer, as The Director is extremely successful and famous. He gets her excited by saying that he has offered her male counterpart role to Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn.
Throughout their various meetings to discuss the movie, J starts to realize that The Director is extremely manipulative in more ways than one. For example, he says that their partnership won’t work unless they can trust each other physically. J tries to understand and things escalate as their relationship grows. Sadly, this relationship lasts for five years.
The important thing about “The Director” is that these are J.K. Stein’s uncensored and unedited journal entries from when she was meeting with The Director. The reader gets insight into the thoughts and emotions that she was feeling during this time of emotional, physical and sexual abuse.
The reader gets the outside perspective of seeing that something isn’t right with The Director. They also get to see how J.K. rationalizes these behaviors, something very normal with abusive relationships.
The memoir also spotlights the importance of a young woman trying to find herself and success in a corrupted world. The decisions she makes and the situations she faces are extremely real, something that the world needs to come to terms with.
It’s assumed the J.K. Stein is a pseudonym to keep her private life exactly that… private.
J.K. Stein decided to share her story with the recent allegations of Harvey Weinstein coming to light.
In her foreword, she writes, “This memoir is an attempt to bring forth the painful truths about sexual abuse…. I now know that I am not the only person who has experienced sexual assault of this nature and therefore I can’t be the only person who has lived in shame of these acts. Writing this book allowed me to finally make peace with the woman I was and the choices I made.”
On the back cover, the reader is reassured that J.K. Stein ends up better than where she began.
“Since engaging with The Director, she has fallen in love with both butter and a wonderfully respectful man, two things she denied herself for far too long,” reads the bio on the back.
For more information about her book, J.K. Stein has a website at www.thedirector.info. Readers can also reach out to her at thevoiceofj.k.stein@gmail.com.
@hannahjoyce