REVIEW: I Will Find You by Joanna Connors

 5/5 stars

I’m surprised I haven’t heard more about this book yet. It deserves some 2016 nonfiction awards. 

Rape victims often don’t report their abusers. And I’d guess that most victims sure as heck don’t go looking for the rapist after the fact. Joanna Connors, a newspaper reporter who was attacked while on assignment at a college theater, did just that. After more than 20 years of internal suffering, she set out to locate the man who ended up haunting every part of her life. Before that, the last words he spoke to her were, “I will find you.” She decided to find him first.

Many would call Connors crazy for her obsession with finding her rapist and learning about his background before and since he assaulted her. However, she uses the journey as a sort of therapy and finds peace with her circumstances as many writers do: by gathering facts and writing about them. She learns almost right away that the man, a nearly lifelong criminal, has passed away years before. But she is able to sit down with several of his family members and acquaintances to put together the pieces leading up to the event that left her broken. Connors offers a rare look into the rape experience and approaches it in an interesting, journalistic way.

I was amazed by her compassion for the rapist’s family, whose history was full of severe abuse at the hands of parents and caregivers. She is careful not to excuse criminal behavior while pointing out that a dysfunctional upbringing can have disastrous and widespread affects. Her story is a personal one, but she mixes in some history about the criminal justice system and race relations in late twentieth-century America. Connors’ story is particularly timely given the recent attention to rape on college campuses. I’ll warn that the author doesn’t hold back on any details of the crime, so some readers may be triggered by her descriptions of the incident. But it’s this honesty that also allows readers to tap into her feelings of guilt and fear and better understand a very misunderstood topic.

Release date: April 5 (Atlantic Monthly Press)