I just finished reading Lucky, by Alice Sebold. It’s an account of her rape when she was a 19 year old freshman at Syracuse University. The book has really caused me to rethink trauma theory, for there is nothing theoretical about Lucky. She describes her rape in horrifying detail. Even more troubling, at least in some respects, is the response of those around her.
I was now on the other side of something they could not understand. I didn’t understand it myself. (p. 27)
This isn’t a review of the book, which was published in 1999. It has been often reviewed. It even has its own Wikipedia entry. Sebold subsequently published The Lovely Bones, which was made into a movie. She is a good writer.
This post is about my embarrassment at writing about trauma theory after reading Sebold’s book. Not that there is anything wrong with trauma theory, but there is something so real about Sebold’s account that it makes the theory of trauma seem an overly intellectual exercise. At least for me, at least for a little while.
Nevertheless, it’s not so simple, for trauma theory helped Sebold, who says that she learned that a short passage from her book had been published in Judith Herman’s classic work, Trauma and Recovery. Sebold said she decided not just to keep Herman’s book as a memento, but to actually read it. It may not have changed her life, Sebold did that for herself, but it helped her make sense of her experience.
