Lucky

Publisher and industry reviews

UK Kirkus review

Sebold is best known in this country for her bestselling novel, The Lovely Bones. Published in the UK for the first time, Lucky is an earlier work, the story of her own rape and its aftermath. The title derives from the comment of a police officer who told her that she was 'lucky' not to have been murdered. The memoir begins with an account of the rape itself. Sebold, an 18-year-old virgin, and a first-year student at Syracuse University, is walking back to campus one night when she is grabbed from behind by a man with a knife. The description of the brutal and vicious attack that follows is unsparing in its detail. Nonetheless, Sebold manages to persuade her attacker that she won't report him, and thus saves her own life. The story that follows is both harrowing and uplifting. Harrowing because Sebold finds that, as a rape victim, she doesn't receive the kindness and sympathy she might have expected - from the police, from her friends or even from her own family. Her father, on hearing that Sebold's attacker had dropped his knife in the struggle, asks: 'How could you have been raped if he didn't have the knife?' Uplifting because Sebold refuses to let the rape destroy her: 'You save yourself or you remain unsaved.' When the rapist is caught and tried, Sebold has to go through the trauma of cross-examination by a sneering defence barrister determined to undermine her evidence. Yet she triumphs; the court bailiff later tells her that she is the best rape witness he has ever seen. Sebold is unflinchingly honest about her feelings about what happened to her; this isn't an easy story of someone undergoing a trauma and overcoming it. On the contrary, Sebold's life goes to pieces - she starts drinking heavily and taking drugs - even as she convinces herself that she is unaffected by what has happened to her. Only years later does she realize that she is suffering from post-traumatic stress and that the experience has left deep psychological wounds. Yet even though she is unflinching in her account of the attack and its consequences, she is never self-pitying, never asks for sympathy. Don't be fooled into thinking, either, that this is just a memoir of a rape victim; Sebold is a fine writer and brings to her account a novelist's ability to tell a story. Horrifying though this book is, you'll find it hard to put down. And by the end, you'll find yourself feeling the deepest admiration for this exceptional woman. (Kirkus UK)

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