lucky ?

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lucky by Alice Sebold

If you read this book, you will never be the same. Really, I challenge you to read this book and not be altered by it. I was tired. I had dragged my computer and stack of manila folders to a local barnes and noble to get some work done without the distraction of answering the phone, reading email, surfing the web, playing with the cat, cleaning the house, or any of the countless procrastinating activities I pull out of my *ss when I am blocked and under the luxury of two days or more before deadline.

So I’ve worked several hours, am coming down from three coffees, and have a slight headache. But before I go I might as well browse the new titles. Hell, I think, I've earned it.

A quick stroll through one or two aisles, and then home. Except that didn't happen. I picked up a paperback the color of a mid-morning sun. I recognized the author because the leader of my writing workshop once handed out the first chapter of Sebold's last novel called "The Lovely Bones". It was on my eventual "to read" list. This book, however, was non-fiction. It was memoir.

After glancing at several rave reviews I opened to the first page and read:

"In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky."

I don't know how long I stood there, as if in a trance, but when I blinked and looked up I was on page 20. I have no money to buy anything. The coffees had been a splurge. But I knew I would buy this book.

In my journal that night this is what I wrote:

10/18/03
I spent several hours in barnes and noble tonight, working on that study guide. Before I left I browsed some of the newer fiction books. I came across a book by Alice Sebold, who I know as the author of “lovely Bones” because the leader of my fiction workshop handed out the first chapter of that book. It was really good and I’ve wanted to read the rest. This book though was a memoir called “lucky”. They very first chapter is when she gets raped and beaten as an 18 year old on the campus of her college. I couldn’t put it down. Time stopped. I literally don’t know how long I stood there, but I do know I covered 20 pages before I stopped and looked around me. I gathered my things and bought the book. I brought it home and was afraid to pick it up again, so I let it sit awhile. I heated some leftovers, watched some TV, then made a drink and lifted the book from its bag. I read maybe another ten pages before I stopped and sobbed for a long time. What’s wrong with me? I know that I have never been molested, never been accosted, never been raped. It would explain a lot if I had, but I haven’t. Something about this woman’s story nails the very core of me. Makes me crumple here on the carpet.

I know I have a history of depression and I know that’s led to behaviors and lifestyles which bring me shame. I know there are things about myself that I can’t explain. But there is nothing to account for this. No live experience that they text books say should explain me.

I tend to not believe in past lives, but with this I wonder. Is that crazy? Crazier than a god, in which I can’t believe? The belief in multiple me’s??


More later...