Brontosaurus Illustrated is the story of a rape, now fifty years old, and its effects over five decades. Nina Gold was a 19-year-old Stanford sophomore riding a full math scholarship to the American dream. But her avid quest was trampled one spring break-like an ant by a boot-when she was kidnapped and raped at gunpoint on a Baja beach, a trauma the size of a brontosaurus.
It began when two armed men in ski masks slithered out of the shrubbery as Nina and her friends were enjoying a joint and the sunset. They were tied up and stowed in the back of their own van, then raped on the sand. Of course, everything was different after that. Or was it? How could she know?
Brontosaurus Illustrated is a graphic rendition of this story and Nina's consequent spin-out that lasted for decades as she searched for reasons, meanings, antidotes. And a way forward. Is Nina Gold a lucky victim, rife with muscular resilience, because she created a seemingly "normal" life? Or is she warped and ruined forever? Is she a better person for having been raped? Stronger? Tougher? Brighter? More empathetic? More poetic? Kinder? Or is she worse? Meaner? Colder? And much more detached? There is no way to know. But with a rape occurring every second of every day, there are millions of stories that need to be told. Brontosaurus Illustrated is one of them... with drawings. And jokes.
