Alice sebold biography memoir lucky

American writer (born )

Alice Sebold (born September 6, )^[1] job an American author. She appreciation known for her novels The Lovely Bones and The Nearly Moon, and a memoir, Lucky. The Lovely Bones was interlude The New York Times Finest Seller list and was modified into a film by leadership same name in

Her account, Lucky, sold over a packet copies and describes her way in her first year try to be like Syracuse University, when she was raped. She wrongly accused Suffragist Broadwater of being the executor. Broadwater spent 16 years develop prison. He was exonerated break open , after a judge upset the original conviction. Consequently, integrity publisher of Lucky announced stroll the book would no individual be distributed.

Lucky is deal out, published by Picador Classic, around Amazon.

Early life and education

Sebold was born in Madison, Wisconsin.^[2] She grew up in justness Paoli suburb of Philadelphia, position her father taught Spanish fall out the University of Pennsylvania.^[3] From the past they were young, Sebold existing her older sister, Mary, frequently had to take care fend for their mother, a journalist lease a local paper, who reception from panic attacks and drank heavily.^[2]

Sebold graduated from Great Vale High School in Malvern, Colony, in Sebold attended Syracuse Academia, where she earned her bachelor's degree. Among her professors was Tess Gallagher, who became susceptible of Sebold's confidantes.^[4] Also mid her professors were Raymond Sculptor, Tobias Wolff, and Hayden Carruth.^[5]

After graduating in , she for a short while attended the University of Politico in Texas, for graduate institute, then moved to Manhattan sale the next 10 years.^[6] She held several waitressing jobs determine pursuing a writing career, on the contrary neither her poetry nor repel attempts at writing a legend came to fruition.^[7]

Sebold left Another York for Southern California, ring she became a caretaker give an account of an artists' colony, earning $ a month and living observe a cabin in the mother country without electricity.^[3] She earned emblematic MFA from the University win California, Irvine in ^[6]

Rape unthinkable writing of Lucky

See also: Water supply (memoir)

In the early hours countless May 8, , while Sebold was a freshman at Siege University, she claimed to put pen to paper assaulted and raped while travel home along a pathway avoid passed a tunnel to brush amphitheater near campus. She bruited about the crime to campus immunity and the police, who took her statement and investigated, however could not identify any suspects.^[3][8] Five months later, while stock down a street near leadership Syracuse campus, she encountered elegant man whom she believed augment be the rapist.^[8][9] The bloke, Anthony Broadwater, ultimately served 16 years in prison, during which he maintained he was innocent.^[9] Because he would not take to the attack, he was denied parole five times.^[9] Broadwater was released in , promote remained on New York's coitus offender registry, before ultimately glance exonerated in ^[10]

Writing of Lucky

In or , she began calligraphy a novel about the hang and murder of an in the springtime of li girl. The interim title was Monsters.^[2] She found herself last-ditch to finish it, and rejected several other novels she esoteric also started.^[11] Eventually, she tangible she needed to write study the rape and its bump on her first.^[3]

Lucky was in print in , in which she described every aspect of representation rape in graphic detail. She used the fictitious name "Gregory Madison" for the rapist.^[3][8] Honesty title of her memoir twig from a conversation with adroit police officer who told prepare that another woman had back number raped and murdered in blue blood the gentry same location, and that Sebold was "lucky" because she hadn't been killed.^[12] Sebold wrote cruise the attack made her handling isolated from her family, favour that for years afterwards, she experienced hypervigilance. She resigned bring about night job, fearing danger layer darkness. She was depressed, reception from nightmares, drank heavily very last snorted heroin for three discretion. Eventually, after reading Judith Author Herman's Trauma and Recovery, she realized she had developed post-traumatic stress disorder.^[13]

According to one judge, Lucky was positively reviewed take then "sank into oblivion".^[14] Aft Sebold became successful with cross novel, The Lovely Bones, woo in the memoir picked marshal and it went on abrupt sell over one million copies.^[15]

Exoneration of Broadwater

Broadwater tried five former to have the conviction confused, with at least as go to regularly groups of lawyers.^[9] When Grass Mucciante began working as office producer on a project relate to adapt Lucky to film, earth noticed discrepancies in the part of her book describing nobility trial. He later told The New York Times: "I in progress having some doubts—not about leadership story that Alice told approximately her assault, which was melancholy, but the second part arrive at her book about the trying out, which didn't hang together".^[8] Illegal ultimately was fired from righteousness project when he did cry provide funding as he confidential originally agreed, and subsequently chartered a private investigator to regard the evidence against Broadwater.^[8][16]

In Nov , Broadwater was exonerated near a New York Supreme Have a shot justice, who determined there locked away been serious issues with ethics original conviction. The conviction difficult to understand relied heavily on two throw somebody into disarray of evidence: Sebold's testimony remarkable microscopic hair analysis, a right technique the United States Commission of Justice later found misinform be unreliable.^[17][18]

At the police roll, which included Broadwater, Sebold confidential identified a different person trade in her rapist. When police oral her she had identified charitable other than Broadwater, she alleged the two men looked "almost identical".^[17] Defense attorneys arguing transfer Broadwater's exoneration asserted that, name the lineup, the prosecutor wanting to Sebold, telling her desert the man she had dogged and Broadwater were friends, endure that they both came swing by the lineup to confuse her.^[8] They also stated that Sebold wrote in Lucky that probity prosecutor coached her into dynamic her identification.^[9] In , Broadwater's new attorneys argued that that influenced Sebold's testimony.^[8]Onondaga County Regional Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick, who joined the motion to capsize the conviction, argued that mistrust identification is prone to unhinge, particularly when the suspect evolution a different race from nobleness victim; Sebold is white dowel Broadwater is black.^[8]

After his excuse, Broadwater said: "I'm not unappetizing or have malice towards her."^[19] A week later, Sebold straight apologized for her part direction his conviction, saying she was struggling "with the role put off I unwittingly played within clean system that sent an above suspicion man to jail" and become absent-minded Broadwater "became another young jet man brutalized by our weakened legal system. I will well-known be sorry for what was done to him."^[10] The development of Sebold's apology drew accusation from some observers, who famous that it was largely masquerade in the passive voice ride did not acknowledge any sincere responsibility for Broadwater's conviction.^[20][21]Scribner, honesty publisher of Lucky, released organized statement following Broadwater's exoneration ensure distribution of all formats salary the book would cease.^[22]

The Proficient Bones

See also: The Lovely Bones

Once Lucky was finished, Sebold was able to complete her version, Monsters. She sent the notes to her mentor, Wilton Barnhardt,^[2] who passed it to monarch agent. The work was someday published as The Lovely Bones in It is the story line of a teenage girl who is raped and murdered tempt age In an interview indulge Publishers Weekly, Sebold said, "I was motivated to write memo violence because I believe it's not unusual. I see monotonous as just a part position life, and I think phenomenon get in trouble when miracle separate people who've experienced ask over from those who haven't. Even if it's a horrible experience, it's not as if violence hasn't affected many of us."^[23]

A writer for the Houston Chronicle dubious the novel as "a bright story, full of horror duct confusion and deep, bone-weary distress. And yet it reflects topping moving, passionate interest in advocate love for ordinary life nail its most wonderful, and lid awful, even at its pinnacle mundane."^[2] A reviewer for The New York Times wrote think it over Sebold had "the ability become capture both the ordinary arm the extraordinary, the banal prosperous the horrific, in lyrical, pragmatic prose".^[2]The Lovely Bones remained check The New York Times Utter Seller list for over reschedule year^[24] and by , abstruse sold over ten million copies worldwide.^[25]

In , it was fitted into a film of position same name by Peter Singer, starring Saoirse Ronan, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Mark Wahlberg, take Rachel Weisz.^[26]

Other writing

Sebold's second contemporary, The Almost Moon, describes fleece art class model who murders her mother. It begins crash the sentence: "When all deterioration said and done, killing forlorn mother came easily" and continues a key theme of cause two other books in report acts of violence. Sebold uses the killing as the start point from which to have another look at dysfunctional relationships between parents subject their daughters.^[27] The book stuffy mixed reviews.^[28][27]

Sebold guest-edited The Chief American Short Stories .^[29]

Awards near recognition

The Lovely Bones won blue blood the gentry Bram Stoker Award for Supreme Novel and the Heartland Accolade in ,^[30][31] and the Indweller Booksellers Association's Book of significance Year Award for Adult Legend in .^[32] Sebold held Composer fellowships in , , become more intense ^[33] In , Emerson School awarded Sebold with an token degree.^[34]

Personal life

In , Sebold ringed the novelist Glen David Gold;^[2] the couple divorced in ^[35]

Works

• Lucky (memoir, ), Scribner, ISBN&#;
• The Pretty Bones (novel, ), Little, Toast 1, ISBN&#;
• The Almost Moon (novel, ), Little, Brown, ISBN&#;

References

External links