Searching for justice for the Lost Girls

Lost Girls (Netflix, 2020). Directed by Liz Garbus, screenplay by Michael Werwie, based on the book Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker.   Late one night in May 2010, a young woman made a frantic call to 911. She was calling from Oak Beach, an affluent residential area in rural Long Island. Visibly distressed, she...

The lonely city in The Visitor by Maeve Brennan

About halfway through Maeve Brennan’s novella The Visitor, the author comments on the two worlds that exist within the landscape of a city. She distinguishes these two worlds by describing them as, the one with walls around it, meaning the private interior world of the home, and the one with people around it, which is the public...

The victim’s voice in Netflix’s Unbelievable

Lynnwood, Washington, 2008: a young woman named Marie Adler (Kaitlyn Dever) awakes to find an intruder in her apartment. The masked man ties her up and rapes her. The next morning Marie reports her assault to the police. After submitting to a physical examination, and repeating an account of her sexual assault several times, the...