Inspired by a true story, 'Nightcrawling' deals with sex work – and sexual abuse

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 14 June 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Inspired by a true story from Oakland, California, Leila Mottley's first novel follows a young Black girl who is sexually abused by a group of police officers. Kiara is a 17-year-old girl who comes from a fractured, poor family, and the novel follows her story as she attempts to survive and thrive navigating so much with so little protection. In an interview with Ayesha Roscoe on Weekend Edition Sunday, Mottley talked about the rich internal world she created for her main character, adding nuance to the storylines of poor characters, and the media coverage of the case that inspired her book.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Real quick, before we start the show today,
0:08.2	NPR is doing its annual survey to better help understand how listeners like you spend time with podcasts.
0:15.1	It's quick and easy and anonymous, and it help us out a ton if you could fill it out. It's at npr.org slash podcast survey,
0:23.3	all one word. Thanks so much. It really does help out NPR podcasts. Again, it's at npr.org
0:29.2	slash podcast survey. Okay, so onto the show. Sometimes in the media, us at NPR included,
0:36.9	we'll take a new story and examine it from way on high.
0:39.8	You know, like, oh, how will this affect, you know, this institution or this community of people or this bit of legislation.
0:46.6	The thing with fiction is that it has the flexibility to be like, no, no, no, no, no, how does this affect this person?
0:53.9	The new story that inspires today's novel
0:55.7	is a rough one. It's about multiple Oakland police officers sexually abusing a teenage girl.
1:01.4	But rather than focus on the cops or the city government, it focuses on the girl. The book is
1:06.9	called Nightcrawling, and it was written by Layla Motley. And what makes this interview
1:11.7	with NPR's Aisha Roscoe is that you can really hear Motley describe with care and empathy
1:17.2	the ins and outs of her central character's life. In the U.S., national security news can feel
1:23.7	far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors
1:29.6	on our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real
1:35.0	people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods
1:41.1	on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
1:51.0	High school dropout Kiara Johnson has a lot on her plate. She has rent and bills to pay while caring for her brother and her young neighbor that lives next door. So she turns to
1:56.3	something she never expected she would do to make ends meet, night crawling, or in other terms, sex work.
2:04.2	Through her work, she sees her city from new perspectives, one that holds the joy, pain, and resilience of its people,
2:12.0	despite failing infrastructure and a corrupt police department.
	...

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