Press Release

The Castle

by Anne Montgomery

NEW DESERT DRAMA TACKLES SEXUAL ASSAULT

Why write a novel about rape? For author Anne Montgomery the reason was personal. While attending college, Montgomery was sexually assaulted. She became a statistic. Today, one out of every six women in the United States will be the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime. Like 80% of those victims, Montgomery never went to the police.

“I believed they would have blamed me. I was on a date with a sweet-faced farm boy who played for my university’s football team. I’d had a few drinks. I willingly followed him into his dorm room. What did I expect would happen? So, I said nothing.”

Add to that experience the fact that Montgomery spent 20 years teaching in a Title I high school, where the vast majority of her students lived in poverty. It was during that time she came to understand another sad statistic: Four out of five rapes are committed by someone the victim knows.

“I kept meeting young girls who’d been sexually assaulted, always by a family member or friend. Sadly, many of these teens were ostracized by their loved ones when they came forward, told they were lying, or that the assault was their fault.”

In The Castle [Touchpoint Press, September 13, 2021] Montgomery introduces Maggie, a National Park Ranger of Native American descent, who is recovering from the gang rape she suffered in the Coast Guard. The reader follows Maggie through her depression, anger, and ultimate healing.

A reporter in TV and print for 15 years, Montgomery investigated the behavior and psychology of rapists, the profile of a victim, and the ways sexual assault survivors can heal. Engaging and influential, Montgomery is available for interviews, Q&A’s, and byline articles around the launch of The Castle focusing on topics that include:

The signs of sexual violence and how to help someone in need
Surviving and thriving after sexual violence
The need to change the way society addresses sexual assault and its victims
Channeling life experience – both traumatic and joyous – through the fictional characters in her work

Anne Butler Montgomery has worked as a television sportscaster, newspaper and magazine writer, teacher, author, and amateur sports official. Her first TV job came at WRBL-TV in Columbus, Georgia, and led to positions at WROC-TV in Rochester, New York, KTSP-TV in Phoenix, Arizona, and ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut, where she anchored the Emmy and ACE award-winning SportsCenter. She finished her on-camera broadcasting career with a two-year stint as the studio host for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. Montgomery was a freelance and/or staff reporter for six publications, writing sports, features, movie reviews, and archeological pieces. Her novels include The Castle, A Light in the Desert, Wild Horses on the Salt, The Scent of Rain, and Wolf Catcher. Montgomery taught sports reporting at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and taught high school journalism for 20 years. She was an amateur sports official for four decades, a time during which she called baseball, ice hockey, soccer, and basketball games and served as a high school football referee and crew chief. Montgomery is a foster mom to three sons and a daughter. When she can, she indulges in her passions: rock collecting, scuba diving, musical theater, and playing her guitar.

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