Can a young country girl find fame
as a network television broadcaster? StopRape.com
is a novel set in Michigan ’s
remote Upper Peninsula . A third of the population is
Finnish-American and people “talk like dat dere, hey.” This is country with snow six months of the
year. The protagonist, native Yooper Kerstin Mikkola, is a TV broadcaster at
KDUP with offices at an old airport terminal.
She works for Queen Annie, her mentor and widow of the original station
owner. What Kerstin would like is to move up to a network job but she is
unknown.
A surprise arrival at the station
is Imogene Michener who, as a marine recruit, was raped by her training
sergeant Carlos Wayne Sauvenier. Imogene’s traumatic case was blown off by her
commander. Suffering from extreme PTSD and discharged, Imogene set up the
StopRape.com web site, inviting other victims to post their stories for the
world to read. As a result of the web posting, Sauvenier has been castrated by
a gang of violent California Women Warrior bikers.
Interviewed on KDUP television without showing her own face,
Imogene persuades Kerstin to give her a copy of the recorded but unedited
interview, and places the revised pitch for her web site on You-Tube. Now
Kerstin is identified, and hate mail follows. Kerstin wanted to be noticed, but
not to be vilified by alleged rapists.
Identified as a friend to rape
victims, Kerstin helps Heather Rasmussen, who claims she was raped by her boy
friend Joe Pascoe and, with Kerstin’s advice, puts his picture up on the
StopRape site. All this begins to come together, enmeshing Kerstin Mikkola as a
figure in international news. As a reporter, she knows she should not be other
than an observer. Out of her depth, she still hopes for network notice.
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