Highway of Tears

September 30, 2019
Canadian journalist McDiarmid debuts with a heart-wrenching account of the more than 1,200 indigenous women and girls who have gone missing or were found murdered along Highway 16 (aka the Highway of Tears), which runs across the middle of British Columbia into Alberta. The deaths and disappearances went unaddressed for decades, the author notes, and only garnered massive police and media attention when a white woman went missing while hitchhiking the highway in 2002. McDiarmid uses family photos and interviews to tell the stories of 16-year-old Ramona Wilson, whom McDiarmid first saw on a missing persons poster in 1994 when she was 10, and many others who went missing, putting faces on the victims and their families. Finally, a symposia and a walk down the 725 kilometers of highway in British Columbia by the victims’ families in 2006 brought international attention to the crimes. National inquiries in 2016 and 2017 have brought more resources to the investigation, but indigenous women and girls continue to disappear today. This moving, well-sourced book is essential reading for anyone who cares about social injustice. Agent: Chris Bucci, McDermid Agency.

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. S.T.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine