From a Google Image Search – The Guardian

E. Jean Carroll is, as we used to say, a trip. We know E. Jean because her trial for sexual abuse by Donald Trump in a Bergdorf’s dressing room became the hottest news in town for a while. We got to double whatever our feelings were about the first trial which ended in a victory for E. Jean Carroll, because DJT could not nurse his anger in private. He kept whispering and eventually shouting that he never met E. Jean and that she is “not his type” and tweeting derogatory comments until he got hauled into court again for defamation. In the first trial E. Jean was awarded 5 million dollars and in the second trial she was awarded 83.3 million dollars.

The book, Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll offers her views on what transpired at Bergdorf’s and her very literary descriptions of both trials. E. Jean wasn’t born in Manhattan, but she became everything that certain generations think of when they think of Manhattan. She grew up in Indiana. She started writing when she was twelve. She was not an immediate success. She did win a beauty contest. Once she arrived in NYC, she was in her element, in the literary tradition of Dorothy Parker, the famous wit who met with her Round Table in the Algonquin Hotel. E. Jean mentions “gonzo” journalist, Hunter Thompson in the offhand way we often refer to our heroes. 

“Ask E. Jean” was the name of the column Ms. Carroll wrote in Elle magazine for many years. She drops the names of famous people you have heard of and famous people you have never heard of. She is an original, a unique literary voice of a lost generation. You will want to listen to her book on tape. She reads it herself and it’s not an angry diatribe against injustice, DJT, or the plight of women. It sparkles. She describes the aisle down the center of the courtroom in the Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse as the “runway.” Her detailed descriptions of the lawyers and the witnesses, and even of people behind the scenes are witty and funny, revealing both the style and character of each key figure. Alina Habba, defense attorney gets E. Jean’s best star treatment.

Ms. Carroll tells us about each outfit she takes to wear in court, who designed it, the shoes that match it, and the accessories, all with appropriate attributions. She describes the outfits of some of the men so she can offer commentary on their character without appearing critical, leaving her readers/listeners to draw their own conclusions about their values. Joseph Tacopina, Trump’s key lawyer in the first trial, also gets her most special treatment.

Bergdorf’s management, when questioned, admitted that the lingerie department on its sixth floor is often empty or nearly empty on a Thursday night and that, for that reason, it is not consistently staffed with a salesperson. He also testified that in 1996 the dressing rooms were not always locked. Clearly, this testimony gave credence to the events as E. Jean described them. She was questioned in detail about why she didn’t report the abuse to the police immediately, but many women do not report such abuse for any number of reasons. The lawyers expressed  shock that she didn’t scream, but not all women scream when in a dangerous situation that seems as if screaming could cause it to escalate, and, besides, who was on the sixth floor of Bergdorf’s to hear her.

This book is packed with the details stored in the memory of a woman with prodigious intelligence and style. She shares the schema stored in the scaffolding of her brain in ways that are both astonishing and amusing. She has an old-style literary sensibility that we may never encounter again except in the literature of the era in which E. Jean Carroll came of age. She was born in 1943, when the golden era of publishing in Manhattan was perhaps past its prime, but still cast a glow over the New York literary scene. 

The fact that E. Jean had been enjoying Trump’s company, the semi-flirting and the playful banter, made his attack and the demeaning nature of it, the fear that it might turn into a physical assault more surprising and shocking, and in the end frightening than if some kind of attack had been clear from the beginning. Whenever women accuse famous men, men who are financially successful, of abuse, there always lurks a suspicion that the woman’s motive is money. There are enough instances where this is true that it allows others to question whether the events happened as described by the victim. The “me too” movement decided the matter once and for all in favor of the woman. At the time these events happened to E. Jean the position of women was far less clear. Perhaps this helps explain why she made her accusations in the twenty-first century rather than the twentieth.