Know My Name: A Memoir

Miller moves to Rhode Island by herself for the summer. Although she has some experience with printmaking from college, Miller struggles to keep up with her classmates. Though overwhelmed, Miller values the independence that led to her making this decision and feels a draw to connect to herself as an artist. She begins to ask for help and to socialize with her roommates.

Miller walks “an average of six miles a day” (79). She notices how often she is catcalled. She begins to use her “phone to discreetly record videos as [she] passe[s] clusters of men” and sends the videos to her boyfriend (81). He offers to pay for her to rent a car, but Miller rejects his offer. They argue over the videos she sends him, as they make him angry. Miller points out her boyfriend’s privilege in choosing not to engage in this harassment. One night after leaving the studio a little too late, Miller reaches her breaking point and aggressively confronts a man who repeatedly offers her a ride home: “How much was I expected to take, to absorb and ignore, while they yelled and clicked their tongues so freely, with no fear of being confronted[?]” (86).

As she prepares to face her accuser in court, Miller struggles with insomnia.