Joanna Connors - I Will Find You - In Search of the Man Who Raped Me

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thestate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2016

First published in the United States in 2016 by

Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic

Copyright © 2016 by Joanna Connors

Cover photo © Mark Owen / Trevillion Images

Joanna Connors asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Epigraph quote by James Baldwin from “As Much Truth As One Can Bear,” The New York Times (January 14, 1962). Quote on p. 76 from Ovid’s Metamorphoses , translated by Rolfe Humphries (Indiana University Press, 1955), 146–48. Quote on p. 115 by James Baldwin from “Lorraine Hansberry at the Summit,” Freedomways 19:4 (1979) 269–72.

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

Cover design by Jonathan Pelham

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Source ISBN: 9780007521869

Ebook Edition © April 2016 ISBN: 9780007521876

Version: 2017-02-20

For Dan and Zoe, beloved And for Chris, who went through it with me

It’s no surprise that the term “Rashomon effect” comes from a movie about a rape and murder. Akira Kurosawa’s masterpiece (based on the work of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa) tells the story of a violent encounter in the woods through the testimony of four characters. Each one recounts a different version of what happened—including the murdered samurai, who testifies through a medium.

“Rashomon effect” has become shorthand for the way perspective can alter memory. Neuroscientific research suggests that memory is not solid. It is capricious and highly susceptible to outside influence, and changes with each retrieval from the brain.

The addition of trauma makes memory the ultimate unreliable narrator of our own past.

I fact-checked my memories in this book with as much evidence as possible, including stacks of documents, dozens of recorded interviews, and my own journals.

But I also relied on my memories. Others who experienced this trauma may, like the woodcutter or the wife in Rashomon , have other perspectives and other stories to tell. To honor their privacy, I have changed the names of some of the people in this book, and changed characteristics that might identify them.

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

—James Baldwin

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Author’s Note

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Acknowledgments

About the Author

About the Publisher

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