Raped and beaten as an 18-year-old Syracuse University student, Alice Sebold recounts the story of her rape, the trial and conviction of her rapist, and her recovery. Her book also tells the story of its own coming into being. Immediately after the rape, Sebold vowed to write about it, and worked it out in various forms before sculpting it into its final shape 18 years later while completing a graduate degree in fiction writing. Sebold burst onto the literary scene with her bestselling novel, THE LOVELY BONES, about a young girl who has been not only raped but murdered.