Dear TCL Readers:

Today’s the day — my new book, Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle To Make Spousal Rape a Crime, is now available in the US & Canada (and many other places through the export market) from Ecco and HarperCollins Canada. The New York Times Book Review called it “a book that is years — decades — overdue.” Ordering in any format from any retailer you choose is great, but I’ll admit to being partial to the audiobook (available here!) as I narrated it. Writing this book, my third, on the Rideout trial and the subsequent legal and social aftermath, took me to some very dark places but also showed me what persistent and sustained activism can accomplish, all of which is extremely relevant in our current moment.

An excerpt of Without Consent ran over the weekend in Rolling Stone, centered around the making and impact of the 1980 television movie (starring a young Linda Hamilton and Mickey Rourke) based on the Rideout trial. I also wrote an op-ed about persistent spousal rape myths and misconceptions for The Globe & Mail, introducing readers to a novel legal theory that, if implemented, could radically reshape how the legal system — and society — can think about intimate partner sexual assault.

I’m also starting to make the rounds of podcasts, including an appearance Monday on the Daily Beans with Allison Gill and another today on In Bed With the Right with the wonderful Moira Donegan and Adrian Daub. And reviews are starting to come in: Aside from the wonderful NYTBR rave by the great Rachel Louise Snyder and a similarly effusive review from Reason’s Elizabeth Nolan Brown, at Washington Lawyer, the DC Bar’s bimonthly magazine, Diane Kiesel called Without Consent “an excellent book that should be required reading for all law students. For the rest of us, it provides fascinating insight into forgotten legal history."

My short book tour begins tomorrow, too! Here’s where I’ll be:

Finally, let me end this newsletter on a note of gratitude. For my readers, all these years, who have traveled with me to the deepest, darkest corners and are about to do so again. To my incredible publishing team, starting with my literary agents David Patterson & Aemilia Phillips (and everyone at SKLA, especially Chandler Wickers) and at Ecco, my wondrous editor Deborah Ghim (and her assistant Will Howard), tireless publicists Sonya Cheuse and Nina Leopold, marketing director extraordinaire Meghan Deans, associate publisher Miriam Parker, and publisher Helen Atsma.

To everyone who offered advance words of praise — Lyz Lenz, Seyward Darby, Lisa Belkin, Roxanna Asgarian, and especially Alex Mar, whom I’ll be in conversation with at Books Are Magic Wednesday night. To Sarah Marshall and Molly O’Toole, my conversation partners for the Portland and DC events next week. Lastly, to everyone, particularly the survivors, I spoke with for Without Consent (and some that I didn’t) for their courage, their strength, and for trusting me to tell the story as best as I could. (One of them texted me Monday to say she “couldn’t put it down” and it had been the first book she’d read in full in years.)

Narrative nonfiction, my chosen mode of creative communication, is a way to make the deeply personal more universal, and to demonstrate what and how I think. Without Consent challenged me more than any other project, and I’m so proud to share it with the world now.

See you on the road, and beyond.

Until next time, I remain,

The Crime Lady