Connors’ book “I Will Find You” out today

Plain Dealer Movie Critic Joanna Connors’ book “I Will Find You” is out today.  It is the brave and compelling story of her rape  by a stranger while on assignment  in 1984 at a theater at Case Western Reserve University.  She wrote an award-winning series about tracking down her assailant for the Plain Dealer in 2008. 

The book has been getting outstanding and excellent reviews across the country and in Europe.

She’ll also be at the City Club of Cleveland on Thursday April 14, from 5 to 7 p.m. It's free, but you have to register.  All the book sales will benefit the Cleveland Rape Crisis Center. 

Some of the reviews: 

The London Telegraph:
The experience sucked her out of her happy, ordinary present into an unfathomable black hole, which would keep her and her family struggling in its gravitational pull for years to come. Written in the present tense, precise in its graphic detail, it is also the story of her decision, 22 years later, to go in search of her rapist and find out what had driven him to seek her out. As the two-way title – the last words her rapist spoke to her that day – suggests, I Will Find You is both an unflinching portrait of trauma and an act of journalistic courage.

Publishers Weekly: “After 30 years, she goes on a quest to uncover the personal story of David, the man who raped her, and in the process encounters the stories of brutality faced by David’s family as they experience poverty and racism. Connors talks with David’s siblings, who reveal their own trauma and exposure to violence at the hands of an abusive father and a broken legal system that over-incarcerates poor people of color. She examines the racial politics of Cleveland as she crosses geographic divisions between rich and poor neighborhoods, seeking out David’s family. This book is a powerful story of exposing and confronting emotional scars in order to move forward. With emotional honesty and the precision of a seasoned journalist, Connors explores her own trials coping with the aftermath of rape, which leave the imprint of a constant fear and lead her to mistrust even close family members. Connors’s astute reflections on race, gender, and the personal plight of victimhood make this book a must-read.: