In the wake of the success of her 2002 novel, The Lovely Bones, interest in the memoir increased, and one million copies were sold. Lucky was reviewed positively but then disappeared into obscurity. Sebold’s memoir title comes from a conversation with a police officer who told her that another woman had been raped and murdered in the same location, and Sebold was “lucky” not to be killed. Released in 1999 under the title Lucky, the book described every aspect of the rape in striking detail. After a while, Sebold realized she needed to write about her own rape and how it affected her first. Her interim title was Monsters, but she struggled to complete the project. Both her poetry and novel-writing attempts during that time failed to materialize.Īfter relocating to California, she started writing a novel about the rape and murder of an adolescent girl. She then moved to Manhattan, where she lived for ten years, getting by on several waitress jobs. She obtained her degree in 1984, preceded by a brief stint in graduate school at the University of Houston, Texas. A strange kind of luckyįollowing the rape in 1981, Sebold was traumatized and struggled with making sense of her life, being later diagnosed with PTSD. His resulting conviction and incarceration was based on his identification and now-discredited methods of forensic hair analysis.Īfter serving 16 years in prison, Broadwater was released in 1999. Initially, she identified the man sitting next to him in a police lineup as her rapist, but later recognized Broadwater, leading to his arrest. Several months after her attack, Sebold saw Anthony Broadwater, her alleged assailant, on the street and reported him to police. Regardless of her ordeal, Sebold continued at the university. Despite the horrifying ordeal, the young woman somehow managed to survive, but her attacker got away. Author Alice SeboldĪlice Sebold, 18 years old at the time, was attacked, assaulted, and raped while at Syracuse University in May 1981. A brave and inspiring rape survivor herself, the author seems to have woven her personal experiences with the unspeakable crime into the story. Unfortunately, Sebold’s inspiration for the harrowing tale doesn’t end here. She was kidnapped from her parents, brutally raped, and then murdered in the 1970s. The American writer allegedly based the character of Susie Salmon on a teenage girl from Norristown, Pennsylvania. However, despite being a fiction novel with fictional elements like a deceased narrator, its roots are firmly planted in a real story of equally real rape. Part of the story behind The Lovely Bones is based on true events.Īuthor Alice Sebold wrote the novel of the same name, which sold more than 8 million copies after its 2002 release and was then adapted into a movie. The Lovely Bones is based on more than one true story Unfortunately, the aftermath of a traumatic experience can be devastating to more than one person and impact the lives of those involved for decades to come.
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