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.
Reviews
5 stars for how engaging and moving this memoir was. Given the topic, I was somewhat reluctant to read I Will Find You, but decided I would give it a try. Joanna Connors is a journalist. She was raped in her early 30s while on an assignment. Over 20 years later, she decided she had to tell her near adult children about the rape, and that she also wanted to understand more about what happened to her and her rapist. The title "I Will Find You" has a double meaning. This is what Connors' rapist said to her before leaving her, and finding herself and finding out about her rapist is what Connors finally decided she was ready to do over 20 years later. Obviously, what Connors went through is horrible, but my 5 star rating is not sympathy for what she experiences but rather based on the strength of her book -- what she has to tell and how she tells it. She deals with her own reaction to the rape at the time it occurred and in the many years since then. She deals with the impact of the rape on her family and marriage. She deals at great length with her rapist's background, including some very moving in depth interviews with some of his family members. She deals with all of it with breathtaking and heartbreaking honesty and sensitivity. She reflects on her own situation, while managing to have a tremendous amount of empathy for people she meets and interviews, including two of the rapist's sisters. And adding strength to the mix, Connors is a really good writer -- her writing is straightforward, but very descriptive and nuanced. In the end I felt that Connors had achieved her personal goal of understanding herself, the rape and her rapist. But she also worked really hard to write a book that speaks honestly and powerfully to her audience. I would add that you should not shy away from reading this book because you may be concerned about reading the details of a rape. It is described graphically, but fairly briefly and in clinical terms. If you have an inkling of an interest in the topic, this is a book well worth reading. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.
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