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Published Apr 2016
272 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
"This is it. My rape. I knew it was coming. Every woman knows. And now here it is. My turn."
When Joanna Connors was thirty years old on assignment for the Cleveland Plain Dealer to review a play at a college theater, she was held at knife point 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 21 years later when her daughter was about to go to college. She resolved then to tell her children about her own rape so they could learn and protect themselves, and she began to realize that the man who assaulted her was one of the formative people in her life.
Setting out to uncover the story of her attacker, Connors embarked on a journey to find out who he was, where he came from, 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 brave, timely consideration of race, class, education and the families that shape who we become, by a reporter and a survivor.
"Starred Review. Gripping...a powerful story of exposing and confronting emotional scars in order to move forward...Connors's astute reflections on race, gender, and the personal plight of victimhood make this book a must-read." - Publishers Weekly
"A courageous and unsettlingly forthright memoir of overcoming trauma." - Kirkus
"'Why do we feel this shame?' she wondered. 'What do we do with it?' Connors answers these questions with wry eloquence and surprising compassion in this magnificent, necessary, unflinchingly honest book." - Jon Krakauer, author of Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town
"Joanna Connors' unflinching attempt to understand the circumstances behind the most brutal and humiliating moments of her life makes for a powerful and compelling read." - Gilbert King, author of the Pulitzer prizewinning, Devil in the Grove
"I found this to be a profoundly moving, important and, yes, beautiful book." - Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing
"Honest and strong, riveting and terrifying, heartbreaking and utterly unsentimental. This book will change lives and minds." - Mary Doria Russell, author of The Sparrow
"A hard-to-read book that is impossible to put down. I am in awe of Connors's courage and inspiring compassion. A testament to the power of forgiveness and a hard-earned grace." - Thrity Umrigar, author of The Space Between Us
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