A compelling account of survival (Lucky - Alice Sebold)

Member Name: gingerella

Product:	Lucky - Alice Sebold
Date:	05/06/09 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Inspiring

Disadvantages: Painful to read sometimes

I read Sebold's work of fiction - The Lovely Bones - many years ago and enjoyed it immensely. So I decided to follow their advice when someone suggested I read this to further my knowledge before training at rape crisis. It is a memoir of Sebold's experience of rape and her life beyond that.

The book begins in a tunnel. The facts are stark and plain in the preface and this continues to be the case as the first chapter begins. This first person account of rape is all the more shocking because of the mundanity of the some of the facts ("It was a photo ID. New York State didn't have them...Pennsylvania did"). It is this that strikes the chord of reality. There are not the fancy words or witty dialogue you may find in a great work of fiction. You are with Sebold in the moment. You feel the clarity of that moment when the world slowed right down for her and she thought she would die.

As the book continues there are descriptions of the medical, police and legal procedures Sebold goes through, peoples reactions and her reaction to them and lots of background on her life before that day that everything changed - "My life was over. My life had just began."

This is a compelling account of survival of the most brutal crime a woman can face. It tells how wrong people can get it when trying to communicate with someone who was been raped (even when they have experienced it too) and how the justice system seems to favour the criminal. It is a story of hope, though, and strength of the human spirit that endures despite horrendous pain.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to empathise with a woman who has suffered and survived. Sebold does not cast herself in a heroic light - her honesty is painful. Her family and friends come across as well meaning but flawed - I'm sure we can all relate to that! I felt uplifted by the end of the book which I was not expecting. At 251 pages it is not a long book but so much goes on in it that it feels like it is. I cried, I laughed and by the end of it I felt like I was a friend of Sebolds - such is the tone of the book.

ISBN no: 0-330-41836-X Published in paperback 2002 Picador. RRP £7.99 but available online for £5.99.

Summary: An important and uplifting book