I Will Find You
A Reporter Investigates the Life of the Man Who Raped Her
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
The journalist's "brutally affecting [and] powerful" memoir of her quest to uncover the life of the man who raped her twenty-one years earlier (Guardian, UK).
Joanna Connors was thirty years old and on assignment for the Cleveland Plain Dealer to review a college theater production when she was held at knifepoint and raped by a stranger who had grown up five miles away from her. Once her assailant was caught and sentenced, Joanna never spoke of the trauma again . . . until her daughter was about to go to college.
Resolving to tell her children about her rape, Connors began to realize that the man who assaulted her was one of the most formative people in her life. She embarked on a journey to find out who he was, who his friends were, and what his life was like. What she discovers stretches beyond one violent man's story and back into her own, interweaving a narrative about strength and survival with one about rape culture and violence in America.
I Will Find You is a "deeply humane and harrowing" memoir, as well as a brave and timely consideration of race, class, education, and the families that shape who we become (Boston Globe).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this gripping memoir, Connors, a reporter for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, reckons with trauma after rape. In 1984, while Connors was on a reporting assignment in Cleveland, she was raped by a stranger. After 30 years, she goes on a quest to uncover the personal story of David, the man who raped her, and in the process encounters the stories of brutality faced by David's family as they experience poverty and racism. Connors talks with David's siblings, who reveal their own trauma and exposure to violence at the hands of an abusive father and a broken legal system that over-incarcerates poor people of color. She examines the racial politics of Cleveland as she crosses geographic divisions between rich and poor neighborhoods, seeking out David's family. This book is a powerful story of exposing and confronting emotional scars in order to move forward. With emotional honesty and the precision of a seasoned journalist, Connors explores her own trials coping with the aftermath of rape, which leave the imprint of a constant fear and lead her to mistrust even close family members. Connors's astute reflections on race, gender, and the personal plight of victimhood make this book a must-read.
