The moment Standing up to Bill Cosby, speaking up for women

In this searing debut, Constand recounts how she found the strength to testify in court that Bill Cosby had sexually assaulted her in 2004 while she was working for the Temple University women's basketball team. After a year of "crushing shame and confusion" following the crime, Constand went to the police, only to be told that her legal case was weak. Instead, she pursued and won a civil case. But "it wasn't money I was after," she writes, "I wanted justice." Still, nothing could fully prepare Constand for 2017's criminal trial, which consumes the latter part of the memoir, as Cosby's defense interrogated every part of her life (even a sales email she forwarded to friends became proof that she was a "longtime grifter"). Though the case ended in a resounding victory--buoyed by the #MeToo movement--it's difficult not to see Cosby's 2021 release as a shadow cast over his victims' triumph. Constand, however, looks at it another way: as a driver to "speak up again... until we arrive at a real moment of change." While her prose favors summation over scenes, the depth of Constand's wounds and the purposeful nature of her resilience shine through as road map for others. The hope here is astounding. Agent: Jackie Kaiser, Westwood Creative Artists. (Sept.)

CHAPTER 1 A MOMENT LOST I was perched on the corner of my bed at my parents' cozy cottage-style house in Pickering, Ontario, as a chilly mid-February day faded outside. This place had been my refuge for almost a year now--ever since I'd returned from Philadelphia and my many years far from home. I was holding my cellphone to my ear, listening carefully. I'd known this conversation was coming, but there was part of me that wasn't quite ready to have it. A few hours earlier, I had been out running errands with my sister when my mother phoned. "Dolores is going to give you a call," she said. This was Dolores Troiani--she and Bebe Kivitz were my lawyers. Diana and I cut short our trip so I could be in the house when the call came. When we pulled into our quiet street, I knew that whatever my lawyers were going to tell me was big news. The road in front of our house was lined with vans and cars emblazoned with the logos of TV stations and newspapers. Reporters had been harassing my parents and me for weeks now. They called our home phone non-stop; they turned up on our doorstep at all times of the day and night. Sometimes they showed up en masse, like troops camped right outside our front door. That was the scene this day. Clearly something major had just happened. Diana and I hadn't been in the house long before my cell rang. "Andrea"--Dolores's tone was kind but measured and matter-of-fact--"we're sorry to tell you this, but the DA isn't going to move forward with the case. There won't be any charges." I wasn't surprised. Not really. My lawyers and I had sensed that the case we were attempting to pursue wasn't looking good. It was yet another sharp blow in what had already been, without a doubt, the most difficult year of my life. A little more than twelve months earlier, everything had been different. I was a happy, confident thirty-year-old with a great job as the director of operations for the women's basketball team at Temple University in Philadelphia. My work at Temple was a natural fit. Sports had always been my passion. I was an active child, and athletics had helped me channel my considerable energy and have fun at the same time. By high school, I was a star basketball player, and in my final year, I was lucky enough to see dozens of university scholarships flood in. In the end, I headed to the University of Arizona to play college ball. It turned out to be a wonderful choice, not just because I enjoyed the team and the school so much, but also because my paternal grandparents decided to retire to Tucson when they learned that I was a bit homesick. I saw them almost every day and was delighted to have my family close by once more. At the end of my time at university, I had hoped for a spot on the fledling WNBA roster, but when that didn't materialize, I wasn't disappointed for long. After a wonderful year spent teaching basketball skills to middle-school children in North Hollywood, California, I made the Canadian team for the 1997 World University Games in Italy. While there, I was recruited by Sicily's professional women's basketball team, and I played for two seasons before returning to Canada. I worked for Nike in Toronto for a short while before taking the Temple position, then spent almost three years in Philly. But in early 2004, I was ready to shift my path again. I was planning to move back to Canada to rejoin my large extended family and my old friends, and to pursue a career in the healing arts, as both my mother and my father had done. I had a good future before me. I knew who I was and I liked who I was. I was at the top of my game, certain that the groundwork laid by my education and my athletic training had prepared me for whatever challenges were ahead. But I was wrong. Very wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for an early January evening spent at the home of a man I considered a friend. That was the night that Bill Cosby raped me. Excerpted from The Moment: Standing up to Bill Cosby, Speaking up for Women by Andrea Constand All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.