Reading Crime through a Gender Lens: Intersections of Shame, Women's Alcohol Consumption and Sexual Vulnerability in a Crime Novel by Sarah Lotz

The representation of rape in crime fiction enables readers and scholars to consider issues of women's sexual victimisation and agency. Alcohol consumption plays a significant role in a large proportion of rape cases. When women are sexually assaulted after they had been drinking, shame shapes the ways in which the women, as well as society at large, engage with the sexual violence. This article explores how Sarah Lotz represents the gendered intersections of shame, women's drinking and sexual vulnerability in her crime novel, Exhibit A. The analysis reveals how shame operates to discredit and silence a female character in the aftermath of sexual assault by blaming her for her own victimisation.