Highway of Tears, Jessica McDiarmid
Highway of Tears, Jessica McDiarmid
4 Rating(s)
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Highway of Tears

Author: Jessica McDiarmid

Narrator: Emily Nixon

Unabridged: 9 hr 58 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 11/12/2019


Synopsis

In the vein of the bestsellers I’ll Be Gone in the Dark and The Line Becomes a River, a penetrating, deeply moving account of the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls of Highway 16, and a searing indictment of the society that failed them.

For decades, Indigenous women and girls have gone missing or been found murdered along an isolated stretch of highway in northwestern British Columbia. The corridor is known as the Highway of Tears, and it has come to symbolize a national crisis.

Journalist Jessica McDiarmid meticulously investigates the devastating effect these tragedies have had on the families of the victims and their communities, and how systemic racism and indifference have created a climate in which Indigenous women and girls are overpoliced yet underprotected. McDiarmid interviews those closest to the victims—mothers and fathers, siblings and friends—and provides an intimate firsthand account of their loss and unflagging fight for justice. Examining the historically fraught social and cultural tensions between settlers and Indigenous peoples in the region, McDiarmid links these cases to others across Canada—now estimated to number up to four thousand—contextualizing them within a broader examination of the undervaluing of Indigenous lives in the country.

Highway of Tears is a piercing exploration of our ongoing failure to provide justice for the victims and a testament to their families’ and communities’ unwavering determination to find it.

About The Author

Jessica McDiarmid is a Canadian journalist who has reported on human rights and social justice from around the world. She grew up near the Highway of Tears and has been investigating the murders for the past five years. This is her first book.


Reviews

This true crime book is the first by journalist Jessica McDiarmid. She tackles the sad, yet powerful topic of the many missing and murdered young aboriginal females who have disappeared through the years along the road that is called The Highway of Tears in Canada. It gives some good background on t......more

Goodreads review by Julie

The Highway of Tears is a 735 kilometer stretch of lonely road between the coastal town of Prince Rupert and Prince George, in British Columbia's sparsely populated northeast, where countless numbers of women and girls have been found murdered or have simply vanished. The overwhelming majority of th......more


Quotes

"This thorough account of dozens of missing and murdered Indigenous girls and women on Highway 16 in northwestern Canada will leave listeners overcome with anger and sadness. Narrator Emily Nixon wears her heart on her sleeve, breaking away from a conversational tone to suffuse her voice with fury at systemic child abuse and loving warmth at the sweet personality quirks of the victims. Author Jessica McDiarmid's efforts to speak to everyone who carries the burden of the missing with them, often decades later, is perfectly matched by Nixon's emotional rendering of their words. The author reveals the deep roots of the crisis, drawing a clear line from twentieth-century governmental mistreatment of Indigenous people to recent failures in policy and investigations."