Rape: A Love Story (Otto Penzler Books)

Teena Maguire should not have tried to shortcut her way home that Fourth of July. Not after midnight not through Rocky Point Park. Not the way she was dressed: tank top denim cut-offs high-heeled sandals. Not with her twelve-year-old daughter Bethie. Not with packs of local guys running loose on hormones rage and alcohol. A victim of gang rape left for dead in the park boathouse the once vital and sexy Teena Maguire can now only regret that she has survived. And Bethie can barely remember a childhood uncolored by fear. For theyre not even a neighborhood away the men that she identified for the Niagara Falls Police Department: the wide-browed sandy-haired Pick brothers; the sneering Jimmy DeLucca; Fritz Haaber with his moustache and stubbled jaw. Theyve killed her grandmothers longhaired orange cat. At a relentless compelling pace punctuated by lonely cries in the night and the whisper of terror in the afternoon National Book Award-winner Joyce Carol Oates unfolds the story of Teena and Bethie their assailants and their unexpected silent champion a man who knows the meaning of justice. And love.