Not My Type by E. Jean Carroll
The woman who challenged Donald Trump and won!
My book club decided to read Not My Type, and I admit I was not eager to read about rape and defamation trials involving Donald Trump, who was by then president for the second time. I didn’t know much about E. Jean Carroll, who recounts the events of the two trials against Trump. What I learned is that she is, and has been, a wonderful writer, having written for Elle Magazine for 27 years, as well as episodes of Saturday Night Live and other TV shows. She is funny and witty, and her book is a pleasure to read.
Carroll describes her family to the expert witness psychiatrist: “The Scots Irish Carroll family has three settings, (A) Upbeat, (B) Very Upbeat, and (C) Delirious—you hear yips, snorts. Shouts. Whoops. Not all of them are mine. By lunchtime the first day, a few things are obvious: I am raised to be tough. There is no crying in the Carroll family. I am fabulous.” “The thing that is not obvious: it takes Dr. Lebowitz only another day to cut through my bullshit.” This at least partially explains why, when asked on the stand, she didn’t scream; she laughed instead. “Don’t make a scene. Don’t frighten him. This is just a mistake. This is just a joke. He’s just playing. This is stupid. This is nuts. Get it over with. Get him off. Don’t freak him out. Hahahaha! Don’t make a scene. Stay quiet. He’ll stop. If you scream, he’ll kill you.” How many women have felt the same way?
The trial transcripts set the framework of the book. The attack occurred in 1996 at the famous Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City. Carroll did not bring charges at the time. She decided to do so when the state’s Adult Survivors Act (ASA) was signed in May 2022, creating a one-year “look back window” allowing adult survivors of sexual offenses to file civil lawsuits regardless of when the abuse occurred or when the statute of limitations expired. The “lookback window” enabled thousands of survivors to hold abusers and institutions accountable.
Carroll elaborates using her wit and charm. The incident resulted in Carroll never again having a relationship with a man. “I flirted with Trump. The flirting led to the assault. I blame myself.” It gets worse: “And because I blame myself for the assault, I never flirt with an eligible man again.… I shut down any chance of sparking a romance, and for the next twenty-eight years I miss out on the romps, the sweetness, the tenderness, the delicacy, and the wild erotic pleasures of being with a man.” Interspersed with the trial are wonderful, light remembrances from her remarkably interesting life, “because this memoir is about a trial against a not-nice man … every once in a while I must give myself a treat.”
The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages, rejecting Trump’s defense that she was not his “type.” However, in a deposition, Trump mistook her for his second wife, Marla Maples. The evening following the trial decision, Trump lashed out again, claiming he didn’t know Carroll and that she was a liar—a huge mistake, and the basis of the second trial, resulting in an $83.3 million judgment against him.
“So, Friends, it looks like we are doing a bit of good here,” she writes. “We prove Trump is a liar. We changed the rape law in New York. We show that the ASA is needed in every state. We spark the fighting spirits of ladies everywhere.”
Editor’s note: The U.S. Department of Justice has just opened a criminal investigation into whether E. Jean Carroll committed perjury during her civil suits against the president.
“Ask E. Jean,” a documentary about Carroll’s life is now in theaters.