![]() ![]() Early in his sentence, a close friend was killed while standing right next to him in the kitchen. And in their rush to judgment, they put an innocent Black man in prison and let the true perpetrator roam free, likely to this day.Īs we learn from Aviv’s profile, Broadwater’s time in prison was nothing less than horrific. Attorneys and judges viewed Sebold’s case as a way to right the ship. I can think of no more illustrative example of this trend than "Lucky." As Aviv notes, when Broadwater’s trial began, the Syracuse court system was reeling from a string of failed rape prosecutions. Certainly it is tempting to believe that harsher penalties and longer sentences might help deter sexual predators, but Srinivasan argues that such tactics often serve only to exacerbate the structural racism that warps our judicial system - and to send both guilty and innocent men of color to jail with disproportionate frequency. What to do with those? In "The Right to Sex," the British philosopher Amia Srinivasan laments the global epidemic of sexual violence but questions the appropriateness of carceral responses to it. And her portrait of the psychological aftermath of rape is so evocative that Judith Herman quotes "Lucky" in one of the most important books in the field, "Trauma and Recovery."Īnd yet we cannot ignore the trial with which the book culminates - or the miscarriage of justice it produced. In her willingness to lay bare her own suffering, Sebold bears witness to other assault survivors who can’t find the words to describe their own. The first reason is perhaps the most obvious: "Lucky" is primarily a story about the trauma of rape, and as such, it remains extremely valuable both for survivors and allies. Indeed, it’s my growing sense that I need to keep teaching "Lucky" - and my students need to keep reading it - because it’s even more important now than it was before. The verdict seems clear: "Lucky" is untouchable now, or at least unteachable.īut to my mind, such a sentence is either premature or unnecessary. And in the months since, a flock of culture writers ( Sarah Weinman and Laura Miller among them) has descended to offer scathing re-readings of the book. Shortly after news of the court’s reversal broke, Sebold’s publishers pulled her book from shelves. The piece is full of startling revelations about the flimsiness of the case against him, the trauma he suffered after his false imprisonment and Sebold’s creeping sense of despair over her complicity in both. Rachel Aviv’s gripping, maddening profile of the pair, which appeared recently in the New Yorker, gives us a fuller understanding of the ways their lives have played out since Broadwater’s conviction was overturned. And the memoir was pitched into controversy in 2021, when he was exonerated nearly two decades after finishing a 17-year prison sentence. Accordingly, "Lucky" offers a vital perspective both on the trauma of rape and on the still-unfolding sexual assault crisis on our campuses.īut "Lucky" is also a legal thriller that tracks the arrest and eventual conviction of Anthony Broadwater, Sebold’s alleged rapist. ![]() As memoirs go, the book is nearly sui generis despite the ubiquity of sexual assault - especially at colleges and universities - there are very few first-person accounts written by victims. "Lucky" tells the story of a rape the author suffered during her freshman year at Syracuse. Yet there was no real debate for me about one title: Alice Sebold’s "Lucky." The concept is everywhere these days, so the main challenge in building the syllabus was not what to put in but what to leave out. (Tina Fineberg/AP)Ī few years ago, I started teaching a class on trauma. Facebook Email Author Alice Sebold speaks at the Sunday Book and Author Breakfast at BookExpo America, Jin New York. ![]()
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