I have two fears about books focusing on violent crimes, particularly those involving violence against women: (1) that the book will sensationalize sexual violence, and (2) that the book need never have been published, but could have accomplished its goals through a more modest vehicle—like a newspaper article.
Seattle journalist Eli Sanders won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his investigative feature on the rape and murder of Teresa Butz and the rape and attempted murder of Butz’s partner, Jennifer Hopper, in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood on the night of July 19, 2009—an attack perpetrated by a man named Isaiah Kalebu. The piece originally appeared in Seattle alternative newsweekly The Stranger. (Full disclosure: The Stranger is the Mercury’s sister publication.) Reading the book that expands on that coverage, While The City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man’s Descent into Madness, Sanders’ further work seemed absolutely justified: It’s a comprehensive look at the far-reaching causes and consequences of this crime, an examination of nearly every aspect that contributed to it, covering the failures of the state’s legal, educational, and public health systems to prevent crimes like this from happening in the first place.