Book Review - LUCKY by Alice Sebold

I just finished listening to the audio book "Lucky" by Alice Sebold. I have to admit, had I known what the book was going to be about, I would have passed. However, having very much enjoyed her highly acclaimed novel "The Lovely Bones", when I saw her name on the CD case of this one sitting on the library shelf I scooped it up without much looking. I knew Sebold to be a writer with the capacity to craft incredibly powerful word pictures, whose sentences riveted me. I was very much looking forward to another one of her tales.

However, it became apparent in the first five minutes this was no novel. It is, in fact, her harrowing autobiographical account of having been brutally raped by a stranger at age 18, of the trial that convicted her assailant and all the many ways that having been so savagely violated impacted her life. She didn't flinch with words in describing exactly what happened to her. She describes the brutality and degradation of the attack in infinite detail. Yet she also does not over sensationalize her experience of being a "victim" of a violent sex crime. She relays her experiences in matter-of-fact report which she reads nearly dead-pan, with all the passion and inflection of Joe Friday.

Sebold's skill with words served her well as she wove her story. I was particularly impressed by the balance with which she gave back story vignettes of her childhood and about her family, just enough to portray a clear picture of who the 18 year old virgin was that was attacked that day that forever severed her life into a grim dichotomy of before and after. By having a picture of who she was as a daughter and as a sister, seeing what she was like in high school as well as getting glimpses into her freshman college friendships it allows the reader to more fully comprehend the split between the "before" Alice Sebold and the after.

Where the book fell down some was towards the end where she brushes around a period of her life that seemed equally significant. She alludes to much with shadow images she never quite brings into view. Particularly because of the unscathing detail of the earlier parts it made the later sections feel something between rushed and deliberately vague, which I found unsatisfying.

Overall though, this is a very powerful, well written book. It's not for everyone as it does have extremely graphic descriptions of her assault which could be a painful trigger for anyone with their own baggage of trauma history, which sadly includes far too many people. However, those willing to bear witness to the horrific part of Sebold's experience that accounts for the first few pages will be drawn in and captivated by her descriptions of coming to terms with that event - how it changed her and how she made sense of her life in the aftermath.

MOST people will not experience what Sebold did. However, sexual violence is far from a rare occurrence in this country.

A website from Ohio University reports that "In the United States, 1.3 women are raped every minute. That results in 78 rapes each hour, 1872 rapes each day, 56160 rapes each month and 683,280 rapes each year. 1 out of every 3 American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. The United States has the world's highest rape rate of the countries that publish such statistics. It's 4 times higher than Germany, 13 times higher than England, and 20 times higher than Japan."

As horrific as it is for a woman (or man, for that matter) to have to experience, too often that experience is made worse because of the negative social perceptions and stigma associated with it. In the book "Lucky" Sebold describes what it was like being looked at as "the girl who was raped" and the degree to which she internalized the view of being damaged goods.

This is a powerful book to read because it is incredibly well written. It is an important book to read because it takes an unscathing look not only at the ugly crime of rape, but also on the social and legal responses to that crime.

Naming the Perpetrator

While on vacation I read the book "A Random Act" by Cindi Broddus. The story is her true account of a horrific crime - some person tossed a gallon of sulphuric acid off an overpass in the wee hours of the morning just as she and a friend were driving by on the freeway below. The bottle of acid came hurling through the windshield, splashed all over Cindi's face, arms and torso, burning her beyond recognition. She required many surgeries and years of recovery therapy and remains physically disfigured. How she coped with those events and the meaning she gave to it is the focus of her book.

I've been mentally comparing this book to Terri Jent'z account of her late night attack in an Oregon campground. For no apparent reason, an unknown assailant drove his truck up on top of the pup tent Terri and her roommate were sleeping in, then got out of the truck and proceeded to attack them both with an ax. Miraculously, both girls survived, even though their injuries were severe. Terri's book Strange Piece of Paradise tells of her years of investigation to identify the perpetrator who so brutally harmed her.

In BOTH cases it was a random act by a stranger that brought unimaginable damage to these women who seemed to have done nothing to bring them into harm's way more than merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In both cases, the perpetrators were never arrested or held accountable for their crimes. The similarities stop there.

Without question, Jent'z book is better written. Strange Piece of Paradise is filled with striking word images and powerful prose that give evidence to her Yale training. Broddus, on the other hand, is not a writer by profession. In fact, she parnters with someone else to get her story laid out. Evenso, at times her book comes off as too sappy. I acknowledge that from the outset the intent of the two books are entirely different. Jentz aims to speak the truth of what happened to her in the face of a social and political climate that seemed determined to look the other way and sweep all that unpleasantness under the rug. Broddus, on the other hand, deliberately sets out to be inspirational/ uplifting. Her message is of forgiveness and choosing to focus on the kindnesses of those who supported her through the nightmare rather than on the horror or the pain.

Broddus states in several passages that catching the criminal or knowing his specific identity were never a priority for her. Instead, she focuses on "pay it forward" style efforts to make something good come out of the terrible. Jentz, on the other hand, describes feeling driven to find out who did this bad thing. Naming the perpetrator takes on almost a compulsion for her and seems to be a catalyst for her healing (although she uses a pseudonym in the book for the man she is convinced did the assault, she has discussed his real identity with law enforcement officials and given information which substantially incriminates him - if not entirely proves he did the crime. They chose not to follow up because he could not be prosecuted due to expiration of statute of limitations.)

What reading both of these books has got me wondering about is what I believe is the most healthy or most appropriate response to trauma and harm.

While most people will never have to face events of this magnitude, EVERY one of us will face some bad in this world. It is the nature of our mortal existence. When the bad comes, how will I respond? What meaning will I give to the utterly wrong, unfair heartaches that come my way?

Does it matter what the context is?

In the book Too Scared to Cry by Dr. Lenore Terr comparison is made between the effects of ONE isolated terrible awful event that happens to the consequences of enduring prolonged, ongoing trauma. I heard Dr. Terr speak at a conference once shortly after the book came out. She described her research comparing a group of school children who had been kidnapped and buried in their school bus, a young girl who was attacked by a lion at a zoo, and several other "ONE time harmed kids" with a group of young people who had lived in war zones or endured years of abuse. It was a fascinating study of the long-term consequences of what happens when children are forced to live in fear.

But I can't help but wonder what different outcomes might be if we could somehow measure the variable of how individuals DEFINE the bad things that happened to them rather than how much or how long those bad things had to be endured.

The meaning we give to the events of our life has tremendous power. What meaning will I give to my blessings? What meaning will I give to my harms?

Strange Piece of Paradise

Back in May I wrote a posting here about the book "Strange Piece of Paradise" by Terri Jentz.

I left it up for three or four days and then took it down, marking it as "draft" so the words were still captured for ME, but no longer available for those who read this blog. I felt way too exposed by having made references in my comments to some of my early trauma history. It creeped me out that people whose esteem I crave would know the bad nasty secrets of my past. So I made the words go away.

I've thought a lot about why I wrote it in the first place, why I took it down, and why after all these years I still have so much struggle with owning the fact that the old horrors should NOT infer any shame on me. Whether or not I ever adequately answer those questions is anybody's guess. It's something that remains deeply unresolved for me.

I've been corresponding some with the author Terri Jentz over the past months. We've been batting around a conversation about the key issue of people standing mute when evil occurs. If I can't even speak out about my own history, how can I expect anyone else to stand up when they see someone being harmed?

I see no need to go on and on about the gorey details or to make those events the centerpiece of my life's story. But by maintaining the iron clad secrecy about it that is my usual pattern I think I do both myself and all victimized children a disservice.

So, all squeemishness aside, I'm reposting my comments about Strange Piece of Paradise, and not editing out the parts that initially made my skin crawl. There are no graphic tales or anything all that self revealing. Still, for me even saying this much felt like swollowing a coarse stone. Truth be told, I really don't care so much about the "strangers" who might read this. But those folks I know in the real world who are likely to see it...that's the part that gives me pause. I have no doubt that in the days and weeks to come I'll have plenty of opportunities to process that discomfort further and maybe learn from it some.

Terri will be coming back to central Oregon the end of this month to give a "town hall" sort of meeting to talk about the issue of why people look away or keep silent in the face of evil. She will be speaking at Paulina Springs bookstore in Sisters, Oregon, on July 28th at 6:30. Should be an interesting group there, including many who know players in the story. I'm not sure my schedule will permit me to go, but I aim to try if I can arrange it.

Whether I make it there in body or not, I'm definitely with Terri in spirit and wish her every success. Her ability to reclaim her life after an unspeakable crime that nearly killed her speaks volumes to the strength of her core self. I don't know her personally, so I can't really say how much she has actually moved on or how much her life remains intertwined with those events of over 20 years ago. But either way, it seems to me she has taken some very positive steps by fully owning what happened to her and being willing to explore the impact of those events.

While I certainly have no intention of writing a book or going on tour to talk about my own harms there is still much I can learn from her candor.

So here's the post. Hopefully, this time I'll have the guts to let it stand.

*******

I just finished listening to a very powerful audio book, Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz.

I am both haunted and affirmed by this book.

Ms Jentz and her Yale roommate survived a horrific attack while camping near Redmond, OR in 1977. A man deliberately drove over the top of the tent they were sleeping in, then went after the both of them with an ax. It is an absolute miracle that either girl lived through it at all, let alone that they were both able to go on to have powerful, productive lives.

The book chronicles her investigation into that crime which was never solved.

The "true crime" genre generally does not appeal to me at all. However, this book is so much more than that. The word pictures Jentz paints are as breathtaking as the peaked mountains of the area where she was nearly killed. Her book is just the right mix of personal account and social commentary. Her skill with language keeps the reader engaged, maintaining a taunt story with sometimes harrowing details, yet is not overwhelming. Her training in English Literature at Yale definitely shows.

While I've never had to endure the sort of crime Jentz experienced, her depiction of disassociation in the beginning of the book is all too familiar to me. I know that sort of splitting. I also know what it's like to wake up from nightmares years after an assault and feel the creepiness of dream dancing with memory shudder through my skin.

Her tenacious determination to track down the truth of what really happened to her that night leads her to discoveries about evil that go beyond most people's imagination...yet perhaps even more disconcerting is her realization that despite the fact that dozens of people either knew or suspected who did this terrible crime the perpetrator was never arrested, never prosecuted, never punished.

This is why Jentz's story is so riveting for me. While our traumas were very, very different, I know something of the incredulity and impotent rage one feels when others stand by seeing the bad thing happen, having the power to intervene, but instead do NOTHING. Coming to terms with that is something I expect I will do battle with in one fashion or another until I am in my grave.

I get it that there is badness. But I am more harmed, and I believe our culture as a whole is more damaged, by the failure of decent people to stand up and speak out against evil than we are by the consequences of the evil itself.

While the legal outcomes are very different, there are some parallels to what went on in Bend and Redmond, Oregon in the '70s and the case of Kitty Genovese who was murdered outside her apartment in 1964 while dozens of neighbors did nothing to intervene.

At the time of the Genovese murder the press went crazy with statements about how urban living led to such a shameful and wanton lack of regard for a fellow human being. A considerable amount of research and discussion into the social phenomena of "diffusion of responsibility" and "bystander effect" was done for years afterwards. I still teach those very principles in my own sociology courses. They are key principles we social scientists cut our academic teeth on.

But Jenz's story gives clear evidence that even in small town America people can refuse to see or acknowledge danger/evil in their midst. The reasons for this are complex, and unravelling THAT has been the heart of my own journey.