Know My Name: A Memoir

Miller begins her memoir with a look into her personality and character. The first sentence simply states, “I am shy” (1). She provides a series of examples from throughout her life that offer a glimpse into her personality. Miller explains that she is beginning her memoir this way because her sexual assault stripped her of these details and left her “with no name and no identity” (2).

On the evening of the assault, Miller’s younger sister Tiffany was visiting from college and invited her to join her friends at a fraternity party on the Stanford University campus. The group of women drink alcohol as they prepare to attend the party. Miller’s mother drops them off. Miller explains her history with Stanford. She did not attend the school but grew up close to the campus and considers Stanford “[her] backyard, [her] community” (3).

She continues to chronicle the evening up until the moment where she blacks out and cannot remember what happened. She clarifies that she does not believe that these specific details of the evening preceding her sexual assault are important but hints that these details “will be relentlessly raked over, again and again and again” during her assailant’s trial (4).