One night, anthropologist Cathy Winkler awoke from a deep sleep to discover a rapist standing by her bed. For the rest of that night, she lived a woman's worst nightmare as she was repeatedly raped and beaten by the stranger. The event changed her life into something resembling a Kafka novel: a justice system that bungled the case then blamed the victim, a social service system that provided no services or comfort, uneasy and awkward friends, exploitative media, and insensitive university administrators and colleagues. The pain of those four hours was dwarfed by the frustration of her decade-long fight to find the rapist and bring him to justice, ultimately through one of the first successful uses of DNA evidence in a rape case. Winkler, a brilliant observer and ethnographer, chronicles this struggle here—including her own growing awareness of her power to stare down district attorneys, to use the media to her own ends (including segments on 48 Hours and Court TV), and, ultimately through her persistence, to put the rapist behind bars for life. As a story of triumph over adversity, One Night is an inspirational work. And it provides a model of how researchers can turn the lens inward and incisively examine ourselves and our own world.

"In this startling and brave personal examination of rape and its aftermath, Cathy Winkler asserts her own truth of sexual victimization and analyzes the ways in which a range of others make sense of the rape event and of her efforts to pursue justice...One Night makes important substantive contributions to the social science literature on rape and rape processing...Winkler's phenomenological account of her rape trauma will be useful to counselors and legal personnel...its value as an empirical contribution to the fields of sociology and anthropology cannot be overestimated. It would be a good addition to courses on the criminal justice processes, women's studies, criminology, and the sociology of emotion." - Contemporary Sociology

"...horrific, farcical, tragic, incisive and inspiring...Winkler's innovative style is highly effective...[she] makes important contributions to social theorizing about culture even as she adds significantly to a much-needed substantive literature on the lived experiences of VISAs (Victim as Survivor and Activist)...[The] elements combine to create a compelling saga and analysis that has the potential to inform, educate, and moblize diverse audiences...Winkler documents [her experience] brilliantly and in doing so adds tremendously to scholarship in this area." - American Ethnologist, Vol. 30, No. 4, August 2003