An Unthinkable Crime

Essential reading. A rigorous, deeply human account of why survivors haven’t been believed — and what it takes to change that. This book matters

Nadia Murad, Nobel Prize-winning author of THE LAST GIRL

Riveting, maddening, and nearly impossible to put down, this searing history of the sexual abuse of children goes beyond the suffering to show how and why the prevalence of these heinous behaviors has been hidden for far too long. At times, readers may think they are devouring a true-crime thriller — that’s how expertly Janelle Nanos unspools the narrative. As the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators continue to go mostly unpunished, this is the book the world needs right now

Amy Wallace, co-author of NOBODY'S GIRL

An inspiring, enraging and deeply clarifying journalistic work, An Unthinkable Crime not only dares to look closely at something our society has willfully ignored for generations; it also explains, in no uncertain terms, how this has happened — and offers three deeply moving stories of people who have lived through the worst consequences of that denial and refused to stay silent any longer

Robert Kolker, author of HIDDEN VALLEY ROAD

Written with sensitivity and a reporter’s instincts, this book will shake you up. How we talk about what happens to one in three American girls doesn’t just matter for social justice — it matters for how scholars, politicians, and police alike think about what it means to protect women from the very start

Cat Bohannon, author of EVE

A book of stupendous scholarship that shows how a band of defiant academics, psychologists, activists, law enforcement officials, and uncommonly brave victims slowly revised history, rendering visible a sickening problem — child sexual abuse — that was as endemic as it was ignored. Janelle Nanos has produced a definitive work, a story that’s ultimately about validation, vindication, and reclamation. What an achievement. What a gift

Jennifer Senior, Pulitzer Prize–winning Atlantic writer and New York Times bestselling author

An astonishing, trenchant, and deeply reported labor of love, An Unthinkable Crime forces us to reconcile two apparently incompatible truths: many of us find it impossibly difficult to contemplate childhood sexual abuse; yet the crime is extremely common, befalling one in three girls and one in nine boys. Janelle Nanos shows us exactly how this is possible: we have looked away and enabled networks of abuse to operate and entrench themselves, to the detriment of children everywhere. Bold, brilliant, and devastating

Professor Kate Manne, School of Philosophy at Cornell University and author of ENTITLED

An Unthinkable Crime is a staggering work of investigative history, tracing the vast reach of child sexual abuse and the intricate machinery of denial that has allowed it to flourish. With extraordinary care and narrative command, Janelle Nanos uncovers something far more troubling than ignorance: again and again, the evidence was there, and respectable people found ways to explain it away while the institutions charged with protecting children instead shielded perpetrators and discredited survivors. I finished this absorbing, fearless book with my understanding rearranged. This is journalism of the very highest order

Brian Goldstone, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of THERE IS NO PLACE FOR US

Child sexual abuse profoundly harms its victims at a time when they are most vulnerable to lasting effects. Janelle Nanos’s compelling and comprehensive look into the cultural response to this abuse underscores the systemic project of denial that, at every step, has obstructed and suppressed survivors’ brave fight to be heard. These survivors are made to bear the brunt of society’s inability to grapple with this issue. Nanos, admirably, refuses to look away

Roxanna Asgarian, author of WE WERE ONCE A FAMILY

A gripping and nuanced portrait of human beings wrestling with pain, love, harm, and the complexities of belief itself

Rebecca Traister, author of GOOD AND MAD