As promised, I’m back with a review of Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise, which I inhaled last weekend wide-eyed and open-mouthed and would only stop to marvel at my husband “This woman is amazing!”
What I think
Not for the faint of heart, the book is a story about attempted murder and the details are gruesome. In 1977, Jentz and her Yale roommate were camping outside Redmond, Oregon at Cline Falls State Park. In the middle of the night, a stranger drove over their small tent with his truck and then came back and chopped on them with his axe. Miracles abound in this book: both girls survived the attack.
Jentz’s memories are quite vivid and it’s hard to read at times, but looking at the book as a whole, I am in awe of her and really glad I kept reading all the way through. This book was a testament to her dealing with her own post-traumatic stress disorder and through this book, her life was put back together. She pieced together what happened that night, who could have done it, and who saw what and when. She doggedly pursued leads and people who shut down rather than speak of the incident and she comes face to face with her attacker, who years later we learn, only remembers pieces of the event and denies any part in it, but then confesses it to various friends and girlfriends.
I believe her attacker (given a fake name in the book) was high on psychedelic drugs and prone to temper tantrums when he attacked Terri and her roommate. That they both survived is a testament to Terri’s quick thinking and adrenaline-supported action. From that, I am in awe of her. She shows herself to be a strong, unfaltering, and quick thinker, and her ability to spring into action, even while suffering from her own wounds was breathtaking.
I know Cline Falls and Redmond and I recognized the smell of juniper and the smell of wildness, the wild West, that Terri writes about. I understand how she noticed that the area had been subdued in the years since her attack. Even the spot where my grandfather died in a car accident with a drunk driver in 1958 has now been paved over; any physical signs of that accident are now long gone. I remember that feeling of finality as I drove through one hot summer in 2002 and realized that I no longer recognized the central Oregon of my childhood, the same central Oregon Terri Jentz experienced that fateful night in 1977.
Just a fabulous book and worth gritting your teeth to get through the hard parts. I’m a better person for reading it.
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