Missoula

Missoula, Montana, is home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a rabidly loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, the Department of Justice investigated 350 sexual assaults reported by students to the Missoula police. Many of the alleged perpetrators played for the Grizzlies. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In Missoula, Krakauer chronicles the searing experiences of some of the victims: the nights when they were raped; their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the way they were treated by police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. Krakauer's dispassionate, rigorously documented account of what these women endured cuts through the abstract ideological debate about campus rape. College-age women are not raped because they are promiscuous, or send mixed signals, or seek attention. They are the victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from a justice system that is clearly broken.