The Lasting Harm – Lucia Osborne-Crowley

You’d be forgiven for thinking you know the story of Jeffrey Epstein. It was covered extensively in the media: the underage girls, the private jets, the apparent suicide in custody. You might even know the name of Ghislaine Maxwell, his partner in crime, who conspired with him to traffic young women for sexual abuse. But you probably don’t know the stories of their victims, the irrevocable damage they did to vulnerable young women, and the personal cost of bringing them to justice. That’s what Lucia Osborne-Crowley uncovers in The Lasting Harm, her account of Maxwell’s trial – and Allen & Unwin sent me a copy for review.

The Lasting Harm has one of the strongest openers you’ll find in true crime: a disclaimer that the FBI has declined to comment on the allegations levelled against them in the book you’re about to read. The accusations are indeed incendiary – that they knowingly neglected to intervene or investigate when notified of Epstein and Maxwell’s crimes – but even so, you get the impression that Osborne-Crowley is just skimming the surface. There’s so much more to this story than she’s allowed to put to print, and perhaps more than we can ever prove.

Osborne-Crowley was one of the very few journalists to attend every day of Maxwell’s trial, and while The Lasting Harm does detail the day-to-day particulars of proceedings, the focus is on the victims and the inadequacies of the justice system. Her reportage is inextricably linked with her own traumatic experience of sexual assault and abuse, filtering the dry facts of the case through the lens of having lived it and the empathy that inspires. Of course, it comes at a cost for Osborne-Crowley, one that she doesn’t hide from the reader.

In case it’s not obvious, The Lasting Harm warrants a serious trigger warning, for the crimes recorded in graphic detail, as well as for the ramifications for the survivors (including addiction and further abuse). Still, in the tradition of She Said and other literature of the #MeToo movement, reading The Lasting Harm is bearing witness to that which has been hidden from view for too long.

Find my full review of Lucia Osborne-Crowley’s previous book, My Body Keeps Your Secrets, here.

Read The Lasting Harm on audiobook via Libro.fm here. (affiliate link)