Sexual harassment and assault on college campuses is pervasive in the United States. In the novel Grace, Catherine is the new undergraduate dean at Franklin College, where she quickly discovers the history of her boss’s sexual abuse. When she becomes his latest victim, she finds herself in conflict with the college’s female president who will do anything to protect its secrets.
Excerpt from Chapter Eighteen
The surf was rough, and Catherine stopped to watch a lone surfer fight hard to catch a wave and ride it to shore.
The incident with Neil flashed in front of her. She’d never felt such fear, revulsion, like a trapped animal. She knelt in the sand, clutching her thighs, remembering where he had touched her. She placed her hands in the shallow water rolling in gently. “I wish I could wash the whole thing out of my mind,” she said out loud. “Wash it all away.”
She picked up several shells and, standing, threw one as far as she could into the turbulent ocean.
Excerpt from Chapter Thirty-Three
How does a woman carry this searing, painful memory? First kisses, the first boyfriend, and sex the first time were all good memories for Catherine. What if all that was erased by this violence, this loss of control over her own body?
Recommended Websites
The Hunting Ground (2015)
The groundbreaking documentary about sexual assault on American college campuses.
Watch the trailer and movie clips, or read related articles to the film on CNN.
It Happened Here (2014)
It Happened Here is a feature length documentary about the alarming pervasiveness of sexual assault on college campuses, the impact on the student, their family and institution, and the burgeoning movement of student survivors coming forth and taking action against their schools on campus and in federal court. Free to watch on Tubi TV.
Recommended Reading
Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer
“A devastating exposé of colleges and local law enforcement…. A substantive deep dive into the morass of campus sex crimes, where the victim is too often treated like the accused.” —Entertainment Weekly
Lucky by Alice Sebold
In a memoir hailed for its searing candor, as well as its wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus.
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
She was known to the world as Emily Doe when she stunned millions with a letter. Brock Turner had been sentenced to just six months in county jail after he was found sexually assaulting her on Stanford’s campus.