In a memoir hailed for its searing candor and wit, Alice Sebold reveals how her life was utterly transformed when, as an eighteen-year-old college freshman, she was brutally raped and beaten in a park near campus. What propels this chronicle of her recovery is Sebold's indomitable spirit -- as she struggles for understanding; as her dazed family and friends sometimes bungle their effords to provide comfort and support; and as, ultimately, she triumphs, managing through grit and coincidence to help secure her attacker's arrest and conviction. In a narrative in turns disturbing, thrilling, and inspiring, Alice Sebold illuminates the experience of trauma victim even as she imparts wisdom profoundly won: "You save yourself or you remain unsaved."