Eve Ensler wants an apology

THIS ISN’T A PSYCHOLOGIST’S OFFICE. IT’S A cavernous Manhattan loft, the kind with an elevator that opens directly into the apartment. But my conversation with its resident, famed feminist Eve Ensler, feels suspiciously like a therapy session. And I’m the patient.

I should have seen this coming. Ensler, 65, has always been the probing sort: She made her name interviewing women about their genitalia, sexuality and body image, performing versions of their stories in The Vagina Monologues. Twenty-three years later, it remains a seminal feminist text and has been staged in more than 140 countries.

Today I’m here to talk to Ensler about a particularly difficult subject: her claim that her father physically and sexually assaulted her throughout her childhood, a topic she has historically evaded in interviews but is finally ready to address head-on. Thirty-one years after her father’s death, Ensler has written an apology to herself in his voice. That letter, spanning 112 pages, fills