Sep 30

Sep 30 Is Rape a Crime?: A Memoir, an Investigation, and a Manifesto

Author: Michele Bowdler
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

Click above to buy this book from my Bookshop.org shop, which supports independent bookstores (not Amazon). You can also find it via your favorite indie bookstore here.

Note: Trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

She Said meets Lucky in Michelle Bowdler's provocative debut, telling the story of her rape and recovery while interrogating why one of society's most serious crimes goes largely univestigated.

The crime of rape sizzles like a lightning strike. It pounces, flattens, destroys. A person stands whole, and in a moment of unexpected violence, that life, that body is gone.

Award-winning writer and public health executive Michelle Bowdler's memoir indicts how sexual violence has been addressed for decades in our society, asking whether rape is a crime given that it is the least reported major felony, least successfully prosecuted, and fewer than 3% of reported rapes result in conviction. Cases are closed before they are investigated and DNA evidence sits for years untested and disregarded.

Rape in this country is not treated as a crime of brutal violence but as a parlor game of he said / she said. It might be laughable if it didn't work so much of the time.

Given all this, it seems fair to ask whether rape is actually a crime.

In 1984, the Boston Sexual Assault Unit was formed as a result of a series of break-ins and rapes that terrorized the city, of which Michelle's own horrific rape was the last. Twenty years later, after a career of working with victims like herself, Michelle decides to find out what happened to her case and why she never heard from the police again after one brief interview.

Is Rape a Crime? is an expert blend of memoir and cultural investigation, and Michelle's story is a rallying cry to reclaim our power and right our world.

TL;DR Review

Is Rape a Crime? is a scorching, no-holds-barred work that’s part memoir, part investigation into a society that refuses to treat rape like the felony that it is.

For you if: You are interested in joining the national conversation on how rape is handled, including the fight to get rape kits in backlog tested.

Full Review

“If it were one city or one bad cop. If it were one DA who wanted a high win rate so declined to prosecute rape cases. If it were one judge who voiced empathy for the perpetrator and culpability on the victim’s part. If it were one isolated police department where kits were lost, shelved, or thrown away. If it were one crime lab where felony evidence sat untested. If it were one politician who made a throwaway comment minimizing rape. If it were one dean at one college who thought that they didn’t need training to decide a sexual misconduct complaint because their untrained but clearly stellar judgment on these matters would surely suffice.
“But it wasn’t just one.”

Wow.

Is Rape a Crime? is sure to grab your attention with its title alone. And that’s the point, but it doesn’t stop there. This book — as of now, longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award’s nonfiction category — will grab you by the shoulders, tell you like it is, call you out for refusing to make eye contact, and shake you hard until you hear what’s being said.

Let me say clearly that if you have triggers around rape and sexual violence, tread carefully with this book (or skip it altogether). Bowdler was a victim of a violent rape and has battled severe PTSD, and her story is woven into the fabric of the whole narrative.

But for those of us who can, I recommend reading it. It is uncomfortable, but worth it.

As Bowdler tells the story of her trauma (which comes across clearly as something she’s had to do often throughout her life) and post-trauma, she pauses and dives deep into the moments that carry the most injustice: the way the police who responded to her call made her feel at fault; the not only lack of support but outright dismissal that she received from any form of law enforcement; the search for her missing rape kit years later. She shines a light on the way the justice system refuses to take rape seriously and the impact it has on victims.

I value this book for Bowdler’s honesty and candor; her resolve to speak up on behalf of others who’ve suffered like her, even though it’s painful; her investigation into these societal failings; her moments of hope; her resolve to keep fighting; her call to arms. Thank you, Michelle, for all of this.