“Lucky: A Memoir” by Alice Sebold
Book Review by Veronica Romm
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| Book cover of “Lucky: A Memoir” by Alice Sebold. Image © Back Bay Books |
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“Lucky: A Memoir” is yet another compelling story by Alice Sebold, the author of bestselling novel “The Lovely Bones”. She shares a memoir so personal and expressive of her pain of having been brutally raped in her freshman year at Syracuse University in 1981. That my pulse races, hands sweat as I turned each page of this book. What bravery each written word must have taken. The author endured the most heinous of crimes—one that is accompanied by shame and the desire to understand and explain what had happened. Yet who can understand rape?
The police said she was “lucky” because she was still alive and had not been dismembered like the girl before her. Perhaps her youth gave her strength to overcome the aftermath of this event—post-traumatic stress syndrome and a heroin addiction. She was terrified but answered all of the humiliating questions to police, lawyers and her parents. She had told the story so many times that she knew what mattered was telling it on the witness stand. She defied statistics by sitting in the same room with her attacker, at nineteen years old, she faced him. He never thought she would—he was shocked.
“Lucky” is an unusual story because Alice Sebold went through with the trial. She refused to live in fear. And by going forward, it made her a semi-celebrity to the police officers and lawyers who handled her case. Her naiveté and her “good girl” image were never lost as a result of the rape trial.
In the book, Sebold re-quotes Kahlil Gibran (a Lebanese American poet and philosopher), this to describe another rape victim who attempted suicide several times. She says:
“We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”
This memoir is extremely difficult to read on many levels, however, it should be read by women of all ages. It is a personal story that translates to stories of many unnamed raped victims who suffer each day and for the rest of their lives. “Lucky” is inspirational for its truth, courage and survival of Alice Sebold.
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(4.5/5) By Veronica Romm 
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