Publisher, Simon & Schuster Audioworks (January 2003)

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The Critically acclaimed memoir from the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of 'The Lovely Bones.'

"A rueful, razor-sharp memoir...funnier than you'd think was possible...Sebold tells what it's like to go through a particular kind of nightmare in order to tell what it's like---slowly, bumpily, triumphantly---to heal." --Sarah Kerr, Vogue

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; 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 a trauma victim even as she imparts wisdom profoundly won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved."