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He said, she said: The true story of a rape trial
An inside look at a rape trial with twists and turns in every startling chapter.
At the time of the alleged assault, she was a 17-year-old high school student. He was a star athlete on scholarship at an elite prep school in upstate New York. Their summer romance ended badly.
Now, it is up to a court of law to decide their fates.
After eight days of harrowing testimony and lies, a judgment is rendered that will almost certainly boost your faith in the legal system and how sexual assault is handled by the courts.
Like a super-long magazine article, this e-book was written by Ann Brocklehurst, a veteran journalist who reports on courts and crime.
At the time of the alleged assault, she was a 17-year-old high school student. He was a star athlete on scholarship at an elite prep school in upstate New York. Their summer romance ended badly.
Now, it is up to a court of law to decide their fates.
After eight days of harrowing testimony and lies, a judgment is rendered that will almost certainly boost your faith in the legal system and how sexual assault is handled by the courts.
Like a super-long magazine article, this e-book was written by Ann Brocklehurst, a veteran journalist who reports on courts and crime.
63 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 29, 2015
54 people want to read
About the author
Ann Brocklehurst
4 books14 followersAnn Brocklehurst is a veteran journalist and licensed private investigator who writes about crime, courts and business. Before working on the crime beat, she reported for the International Herald Tribune from Berlin and worked for Reuters in Hong Kong and Toronto, covering banking and finance.
Ann's PI work does not involve stake-outs or guns. She investigates for law firms, private clients, and some of the word's largest security companies.
She lives in Toronto.
Ann's PI work does not involve stake-outs or guns. She investigates for law firms, private clients, and some of the word's largest security companies.
She lives in Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 9, 2015
Holy hell. A writer I actually like. Shocking, I know, so pay attention.
Since Goodreads and Amazon are overrun with paid reviewers and authors' friends 5-starring their books, let's get that out of the way first.
I don't know Ann Brocklehurst. I stumbled upon her website in 2013 because she was the first person to call bullshit on Linda Tirado's poverty essay, and we ended up trading some Twitter messages over that whole scam. Oh, and when her Tirado article resulted in some low-blows from Gawker douchebag Adam Weinstein, I thought Brocklehurst showed remarkable restraint -- I'd have been out for blood.
Anyway.
Since I have a weakness for smart people who are also good writers (there are so few of them), I've checked in on Brocklehurst's other writing now and then. I felt totally validated by her take on Serial, I got all fascinated by her archived New York Times articles about Germany in the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I enjoyed her eBook The Mysterious Death of Jeffrey Boucher when I read it last year.
That's about it. I like her writing a lot, but I don't know this chick, we're not friends, and I'm not writing this based on some free advance review copy. She pinged me on Goodreads letting me know about her new eBook, I bought it from Amazon, and here we are.
Preamble over. Let's talk about the book. (Or rather, eBook: sort of like buying a feature article without the rest of the magazine -- it's cheaper, and you're not stuck with all of the stupid perfume ads).
The story covers 8 days of testimony at a sexual assault trial in Toronto. As far as rape trials go, it's all pretty standard: a 17 year-old girl accuses her star athlete ex-boyfriend of sexual assault; he swears it was consensual; alcohol was involved; there are troubling photographs of the girl's injuries; both parties have been caught telling inconsistent stories. The court gets to sift through this mess and make a decision.
Although it may seem like the same sexual assault narrative we've heard a thousand times before, there's something quite different going on in this particular trial--and in its retelling.
Something is missing here...but what?
There are none of the shocking details that you find in the Rolling Stone campus rape article byStephen Glass Sabrina Rubin Erdely. And unlike Krakauer's Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, there are no emotional interviews between author and accuser, no victim-blaming cop harboring political ambitions, no scandal dividing a community.
It goes on.
No screeching updates on Jezebel.com, no images splashed all over WaPo of a girl dragging a mattress with her everywhere, no psychopath doxxing a possible rape victim, no idiots plastering their asinine thoughts about sexual assault all over Twitter.
In short, there is a distinct lack of high drama that one would normally expect in a book like this.
And good Christ, the lack of hysteria was so refreshing.
The Toronto trial was civilized: it was a confidential matter (you won't be able to Google these people), the court scrutinized the evidence and made a fair decision. Case closed.
As for Brocklehurst's take on it all? Don't expect any of that Krakauer-esque rage to come seeping through the text. Actually, I don't remember her giving an opinion on much at all -- really, she only tells readers what took place. (I think in the pre-Internet days, that was called "reporting"?) I'm already partial to emotionally absent narrators, but good God...this gave me flashbacks to the 1990s, when you could pick up a newspaper and read an objective account by a trained journalist you could actually trust. (Well, except for Stephen Glass, but whatever).
And while I had an extremely emotional reaction to Missoula, I actually found Ann Brocklehurst's book to be much more unsettling. It wasn't just the natural tension that arose from the frank reporting. I think the best way to articulate it is this: when you cut away the noise and just focus on what happens during a rape trial...it's fucking upsetting. Sexual assaults are difficult to prove, the accuser and the accused are both traumatized (albeit for different reasons), kids' futures are at stake, and the court has the fun job of figuring out who's lying.
Yeah, I bit my manicure off. Always a sign of a good read.
Suffice to say...
KICKED ASS.
Since Goodreads and Amazon are overrun with paid reviewers and authors' friends 5-starring their books, let's get that out of the way first.
I don't know Ann Brocklehurst. I stumbled upon her website in 2013 because she was the first person to call bullshit on Linda Tirado's poverty essay, and we ended up trading some Twitter messages over that whole scam. Oh, and when her Tirado article resulted in some low-blows from Gawker douchebag Adam Weinstein, I thought Brocklehurst showed remarkable restraint -- I'd have been out for blood.
Anyway.
Since I have a weakness for smart people who are also good writers (there are so few of them), I've checked in on Brocklehurst's other writing now and then. I felt totally validated by her take on Serial, I got all fascinated by her archived New York Times articles about Germany in the first years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I enjoyed her eBook The Mysterious Death of Jeffrey Boucher when I read it last year.
That's about it. I like her writing a lot, but I don't know this chick, we're not friends, and I'm not writing this based on some free advance review copy. She pinged me on Goodreads letting me know about her new eBook, I bought it from Amazon, and here we are.
Preamble over. Let's talk about the book. (Or rather, eBook: sort of like buying a feature article without the rest of the magazine -- it's cheaper, and you're not stuck with all of the stupid perfume ads).
The story covers 8 days of testimony at a sexual assault trial in Toronto. As far as rape trials go, it's all pretty standard: a 17 year-old girl accuses her star athlete ex-boyfriend of sexual assault; he swears it was consensual; alcohol was involved; there are troubling photographs of the girl's injuries; both parties have been caught telling inconsistent stories. The court gets to sift through this mess and make a decision.
Although it may seem like the same sexual assault narrative we've heard a thousand times before, there's something quite different going on in this particular trial--and in its retelling.
Something is missing here...but what?
There are none of the shocking details that you find in the Rolling Stone campus rape article by
It goes on.
No screeching updates on Jezebel.com, no images splashed all over WaPo of a girl dragging a mattress with her everywhere, no psychopath doxxing a possible rape victim, no idiots plastering their asinine thoughts about sexual assault all over Twitter.
In short, there is a distinct lack of high drama that one would normally expect in a book like this.
And good Christ, the lack of hysteria was so refreshing.
The Toronto trial was civilized: it was a confidential matter (you won't be able to Google these people), the court scrutinized the evidence and made a fair decision. Case closed.
As for Brocklehurst's take on it all? Don't expect any of that Krakauer-esque rage to come seeping through the text. Actually, I don't remember her giving an opinion on much at all -- really, she only tells readers what took place. (I think in the pre-Internet days, that was called "reporting"?) I'm already partial to emotionally absent narrators, but good God...this gave me flashbacks to the 1990s, when you could pick up a newspaper and read an objective account by a trained journalist you could actually trust. (Well, except for Stephen Glass, but whatever).
And while I had an extremely emotional reaction to Missoula, I actually found Ann Brocklehurst's book to be much more unsettling. It wasn't just the natural tension that arose from the frank reporting. I think the best way to articulate it is this: when you cut away the noise and just focus on what happens during a rape trial...it's fucking upsetting. Sexual assaults are difficult to prove, the accuser and the accused are both traumatized (albeit for different reasons), kids' futures are at stake, and the court has the fun job of figuring out who's lying.
Yeah, I bit my manicure off. Always a sign of a good read.
Suffice to say...
KICKED ASS.
September 17, 2016
Eh. 2.5 really. Read more like a police report than a novel. Was interesting to see who was going to win the case. My final thoughts? What a dumb broad.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews