Enormously visceral, emotionally gripping, and imbued with the belief that justice is possible even after the most horrific of crimes, Alice Sebold's compelling memoir of her rape at the age of eighteen is a story that takes hold of you and won't let go.
Sebold fulfills a promise that she made to herself in the very tunnel where she was raped: someday she would write a book about her experience. With Lucky she delivers on that promise with mordant wit and an eye for life's absurdities, as she describes what she was like both as a young girl before the rape and how that rape changed but did not sink the woman she later became.
It is Alice's indomitable spirit that we come to know in these pages. The same young woman who sets her sights on becoming an Ethel Merman-style diva one day (despite her braces, bad complexion, and extra weight) encounters what is still thought of today as the crime from which no woman can ever really recover. In an account that is at once heartrending and hilarious, we see Alice's spirit prevail as she struggles to have a normal college experience in the aftermath of this harrowing, life-changing event.
No less gripping is the almost unbelievable role that coincidence plays in the unfolding of Sebold's narrative. Her case, placed in the inactive file, is miraculously opened again six months later when she sees her rapist on the street. This begins the long road to what dominates these pages: the struggle for triumph and understanding -- in the courtroom and outside in the world.
Lucky is, quite simply, a real-life thriller. In its literary style and narrative tension we never lose sight of why this life story is worth reading. At the end we are left standing in the wake of devastating violence, and, like the writer, we have come to know what it means to survive.
Sebold fulfills a promise that she made to herself in the very tunnel where she was raped: someday she would write a book about her experience. With Lucky she delivers on that promise with mordant wit and an eye for life's absurdities, as she describes what she was like both as a young girl before the rape and how that rape changed but did not sink the woman she later became.
It is Alice's indomitable spirit that we come to know in these pages. The same young woman who sets her sights on becoming an Ethel Merman-style diva one day (despite her braces, bad complexion, and extra weight) encounters what is still thought of today as the crime from which no woman can ever really recover. In an account that is at once heartrending and hilarious, we see Alice's spirit prevail as she struggles to have a normal college experience in the aftermath of this harrowing, life-changing event.
No less gripping is the almost unbelievable role that coincidence plays in the unfolding of Sebold's narrative. Her case, placed in the inactive file, is miraculously opened again six months later when she sees her rapist on the street. This begins the long road to what dominates these pages: the struggle for triumph and understanding -- in the courtroom and outside in the world.
Lucky is, quite simply, a real-life thriller. In its literary style and narrative tension we never lose sight of why this life story is worth reading. At the end we are left standing in the wake of devastating violence, and, like the writer, we have come to know what it means to survive.
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Used availability for Alice Sebold's Lucky
See all available used copies of this book at: Abebooks UK or Abebooks US
Hardback Editions
October 2008 : Library Binding
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 1-4395-5810-8 / 978-1-4395-5810-2 Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
October 2004 : Hardback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-330-43883-2 / 978-0-330-43883-4 (UK edition) Publisher: Picador Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
September 2002 : Library Binding
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 1-4176-1617-2 / 978-1-4176-1617-6 (USA edition) Publisher: San Val Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
August 1999 : Hardback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold Publisher: Scribner Availability: Amazon Amazon UK More details... |
August 1999 : Hardback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-684-85782-0 / 978-0-684-85782-4 (USA edition) Publisher: Scribner Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
Hardback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-330-41835-1 / 978-0-330-41835-5 (UK edition) Publisher: Picador Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
Paperback Editions
June 2003 : Paperback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-330-41836-X / 9788876415609 (UK edition) Publisher: Picador Availability: Amazon Amazon UK More details... |
September 2002 : Paperback
| Title: Lucky: A Memoir Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-316-09619-9 / 978-0-316-09619-5 (USA edition) Publisher: Back Bay Books Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
January 1999 : Paperback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold Publisher: Scribner Availability: Amazon More details... |
1999 : Paperback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-9655427-3-4 / 978-0-9655427-3-9 (USA edition) Publisher: Scribner Availability: Amazon More details... |
Audio Editions
2004 : Audio Cassette
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold Publisher: Turtleback Books Availability: Amazon More details... |
January 2003 : Audio Cassette
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-7435-2978-2 / 978-0-7435-2978-5 (USA edition) Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Availability: Amazon Amazon CA More details... |
January 2003 : Audio CD
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-7435-2979-0 / 978-0-7435-2979-2 (USA edition) Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Availability: Amazon Amazon CA More details... |
Other Editions
August 2004 : Turtleback
| Title: Lucky Author(s): Alice Sebold ISBN: 0-606-31257-9 / 978-1-4025-4168-1 (USA edition) Publisher: Demco Media Availability: Amazon Amazon UK Amazon CA More details... |
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