Nightcrawling

Introduction

Leila Mottley’s Nightcrawling (2022), a novel based on a sex-trafficking scandal involving the Oakland, California, police department in the 2010s, imagines the untold story of the female survivors thorough the eyes of 17-year-old Kiara Johnson. Struggling to support herself, her brother, and her nine-year-old neighbor, Kiara turns to sex work, then becomes the key witness in a grand-jury trial when a whistleblower reveals the police’s sex ring. The novel addresses themes of racial and economic injustice and the challenges of familial loyalty as it explores dynamics of gender, power, and autonomy.

Mottley began writing Nightcrawling at age 17. In the book’s Author’s Note, she explains that long after the story was no longer news, she continued to wonder about the lives of the survivors, “contemplating what it means to be vulnerable, unprotected, and unseen” (273). Mottley was named a New York Times Writer to Watch as the book immediately received numerous accolades, including the California Book Award (2023). Nightcrawling was a New York Times bestseller. It was named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and TIME. It was an Oprah Winfrey Book Club selection in 2022, and was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.