Let's Talk About Rape

[Free Community Forum] Bestselling author Alice Sebold ("The Lovely Bones") was raped in May 1981. She was just ending her freshman year at Syracuse University. Nearly 20 years later, Sebold published a harrowing memoir of her rape and of her journey through the legal system. She titled the book "Lucky." This is the first paragraph of the book:

In the tunnel where I was raped, a tunnel that was once an underground entry to an amphitheater, a place where actors burst forth from underneath the seats of a crowd, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was lucky.

Tonight at 7 p.m. on the fourth floor of the Salt Lake City Main Library, the Rape Recovery Center launches the first of five community forums, built around popular books that have tackled the subject of rape in our society. The series runs through November. The book for discussion tonight is "Lucky." A panel of five experts on sexual violence will talk about their own real-life experiences in the criminal justice system and beyond. Representatives from the Salt Lake City Police Department, the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Office and District Attorney's Office will be there, as will a rape survivor who now volunteers for the Rape Recovery Center's Hospital Response Team. I will be the moderator.

If you've read Sebold's riveting account of her rape and its incredibly long shelf life in every aspect of her existence, or even if you haven't, please join us. I promise it will be an important and lively discussion. For more details on the entire free-and-open-to-the-public forum series, go here. Or call the RRC at 467-7282. (Holly Mullen)