Strange Piece of Paradise

By: Terri Jentz

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Synopsis: In the summer of 1977, the author 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, the author 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, this book is a startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of author's brave inner journey from violence to hope.