--TERROR TURNED INSIDE OUT

            “Terror has a sound.”

It’s taken Karen Stefano years of overcoming self-doubt to be able write these words, and it’s with chilling candor such as this that she willfully and artfully splays herself wide open on the page.

In her riveting new book, What A Body Remembers: A Memoir of Sexual Assault and Its Aftermath, Stefano recounts a horrifying night from her past that would go on to haunt and torment her well into adulthood.

As a nineteen-year-old Sophomore at UC Berkley, Stefano (then Thomas) takes a job as a make-shift campus cop whose main responsibility is keeping other students safe.  That irony is turned on its head when, on an off night, out of uniform and dressed in casual attire, Stefano is attacked at knifepoint.

What ensues is a life-altering journey in more ways than one.  Packed with twist after twist after twist, the book at times becomes something of a page-turner, one knocking hard on the door that says truth is stranger than fiction.  Other times, the book is introspective, yet always without becoming self-aggrandizing.

Through the span of several decades, Stefano’s attacker is set free, Stefano’s mother slowly slides into dementia all the while Stefano’s marriage implodes during, but not because of, the financial demise of the Great Recession.

If that weren’t enough intrigue, Stefano goes on to become a Public Defender for the state of California, advocating on behalf of many clients who are just as heinous as her attacker, and some who are, unbelievably, even worse.

Told with a rapid-fire eye for detail, Stefano gives us a nuanced look at confronting terror face-to-face while also coming to terms with the residual effects of terror’s insidious hold on a damaged psyche.   

Throughout the book, Stefano grapples with internal conflict while questions--either direct or indirect--repeatedly rear their head.  Will I ever stop being afraid?  When is it okay to feel safe?  Can I be brave again?  Does this have to define me?  How can I prevent an experience like this from happening to someone else? 

If the book reads like true crime, that’s because it is.  Savvy and bold, Stefano shows us her scars and those of a flawed judicial system that could well have thwarted a dangerous predator in the early stages of his development.

While Stefano’s story is hers alone, the book’s themes of struggle and subsequent redemption are universally appealing.  Here’s a life jarred by crisis and a heroine who, through it all, will not stop fighting, and will not be silent.

As Stefano unsheathes the accounting of her traumatizing experiences, one feels like a voyeur watching her battle both real and metaphorical demons.  We get a front row seat.  We get all the angst and grit and triumph.  We get everything but the popcorn, though you might be wise to bring some along while digging into this gripping read.

      You can find it here: https://www.amazon.com/What-Body-Remembers-Assault-Aftermath/dp/1947856952/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=karen+stefano&qid=1563591389&s=books&sr=1-1