'In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheatre, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the 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. But at the time, I felt I had more in common with the dead girl that I had with the large, beefy police officers or my stunned freshman-year girlfriends. The dead girl and I had been in the same low place. We had lain among the dead leaves and broken beer bottles. During the rape my eye caught something among the leaves and glass. A pink hair tie…' In a memoir hailed for its searing candour and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an 18 year old college girl, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is her indomitable spirit: 'After telling the hard facts to anyone, from lover to friend, I have changed in their eyes.' Her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their efforts to provide comfort and support in this narrative which is by turns thrilling and inspiring, disturbing and chilling. 254pp in paperback.