Lucky

February 3, 2003
Sebold's memoir of her rape as a college freshman and its aftermath is searingly honest and harrowing, and her quiet, personal narration is equally riveting. The gifted author occasionally tinges her intimate tone with irony as she acknowledges the bitter paradoxes of her situation (e.g., the vicious beating she received from the rapist became a "plus" during the trial, because her bruises and wounds proved the encounter wasn't consensual). She also finds irony when a police officer tells her she was lucky because she was "only" raped, not murdered, and later, when the police view her as a "successful rape victim" (one whose rapist ended up behind bars). Through her prose and her reading, Sebold ably conveys both the raw immediacy of her feelings at the time, and her more insightful, aware viewpoint of today. She notes that a year after the rape, she felt she was over it and had successfully moved on, then acknowledges that, looking back, it wasn't true and she was just putting on a brave face. There's also hurt bewilderment in her voice as she recalls how her best friend (whom she met after the rape, but who knew about it and was supportive), froze her out completely after she herself was raped. This is the inspiring story of a survivor who allows listeners to follow her from trauma to recovery. Based on the Scribner hardcover.

Starred review from August 2, 1999
When journalist Sebold was a college freshman at Syracuse University, she was attacked and raped on the last night of school, forced onto the ground in a tunnel "among the dead leaves and broken beer bottles." In a ham-handed attempt to mollify her, a policeman later told her that a young woman had been murdered there and, by comparison, Sebold should consider herself lucky. That dubious "luck" is the focus of this fiercely observed memoir about how an incident of such profound violence can change the course of one's life. Sebold launches her memoir headlong into the rape itself, laying out its visceral physical as well as mental violence, and from there spins a narrative of her life before and after the incident, weaving memories of parental alcoholism together with her post-rape addiction to heroin. In the midst of each wrenching episode, from the initial attack to the ensuing courtroom drama, Sebold's wit is as powerful as her searing candor, as she describes her emotional denial, her addiction and even the rape (her first "real" sexual experience). She skillfully captures evocative moments, such as, during her girlhood, luring one of her family's basset hounds onto a blue silk sofa (strictly off-limits to both kids and pets) to nettle her father. Addressing rape as a larger social issue, Sebold's account reveals that there are clear emotional boundaries between those who have been victims of violence and those who have not, though the author attempts to blur these lines as much as possible to show that violence touches many more lives than solely the victim's.

September 16, 2002
When Sebold, the author of the current bestseller The Lovely Bones, was a college freshman at Syracuse University, she was attacked and raped on the last night of school, forced onto the ground in a tunnel "among the dead leaves and broken beer bottles." In a ham-handed attempt to mollify her, a policeman later told her that a young woman had been murdered there and, by comparison, Sebold should consider herself lucky. That dubious "luck" is the focus of this fiercely observed memoir about how an incident of such profound violence can change the course of one's life. Sebold launches her memoir headlong into the rape itself, laying out its visceral physical as well as mental violence, and from there spins a narrative of her life before and after the incident, weaving memories of parental alcoholism together with her post-rape addiction to heroin. In the midst of each wrenching episode, from the initial attack to the ensuing courtroom drama, Sebold's wit is as powerful as her searing candor, as she describes her emotional denial, her addiction and even the rape (her first "real" sexual experience). She skillfully captures evocative moments, such as, during her girlhood, luring one of her family's basset hounds onto a blue silk sofa (strictly off-limits to both kids and pets) to nettle her father. Addressing rape as a larger social issue, Sebold's account reveals that there are clear emotional boundaries between those who have been victims of violence and those who have not, though the author attempts to blur these lines as much as possible to show that violence touches many more lives than solely the victim's.