Lucky - BookWyrm

Paperback

Published Aug. 30, 2010 by China Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-330-52101-7

No rating (1 review)

In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit - as she struggles for understanding ("After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes"); as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction. In a narrative by turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victims even as she imparts wisdom profoundly hard-won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved."

2 editions

barbara fister reviewed Lucky by Alice Sebold

Review of 'Lucky' on 'LibraryThing'

No rating

A memoir of a rape and its aftermath. As the book opens, the author recalls being brutally raped on the campus of Syracuse University. She steadfastly goes through the process of documenting what happened, encounters the man again and tells the police, then testifies and he is eventually successfully prosecuted. It's only after her roommate is raped - and responds differently - that Alice realizes her brave response isn't really healing, but postponing a reckoning with what happened by adopting the survivor role. The aftermath is somewhat rushed over, but the details of the process and the ways people respond to her are well told and illuminating. The title comes from a police officer telling her that another girl had been murdered - she was lucky.