Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West to Investigate My Attempted Murder - And Solve the Riddle of Myself (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780312426699)

In the summer of 1977, Terri Jentz and her Yale roommate took a cross-country bike trip. As they lay sleeping in the central Oregon desert, a man in a pickup truck deliberately ran over their tent and proceeded to attack them with an axe. The horrific crime was reported in newspapers across the country, but no one was ever arrested. Fifteen years later, Jentz returns to the small town where she was nearly murdered and makes an extraordinary discovery: the violence of that night is as present for the community as it is for her. Shockingly, many say they know who did it, and he is living freely in their midst.

Powerful, eloquent, and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, Strange Piece of Paradise is a startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of Jentz's brave inner journey from violence to hope.

Author: Terri Jentz
ISBN-10: 0312426690
ISBN-13: 9780312426699
Publisher: Picador USA
Language: English
Published: 03/20/2007
Pages: 752
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.95lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 2.00d

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 05/13/2007 pg. 32