Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West To Investigate My Attempted Murder - and Solve the Riddle of Myself

Written by Terri Jentz

Narrated by Margaret Colin

In the summer of 1977, Terri Jentz and her Yale roommate, Shayna Weiss, make a cross-country bike trip. They pitch a tent in the desert of central Oregon. As they are sleeping, a man in a pickup truck deliberately runs over the tent. He then attacks them with an ax. The horrific crime is reported in newspapers across the country. No one is ever arrested. Both women survive, but Shayna suffers from amnesia, while Terri is left alone with memories of the attack. Their friendship is shattered.

Fifteen years later, Terri returns to the small town where she was nearly murdered, on the first of many visits she will make "to solve the crime that would solve me." And she makes an extraordinary discovery: the violence of that night is as present for the community as it is for her. Slowly, her extensive interviews with the townspeople yield a terrifying revelation: many say they know who did it, and he is living freely in their midst. Terri then sets out to discover the truth about the crime and its aftermath, and to come to terms with the wounds that broke her life into a before and an after. Ultimately she finds herself face-to-face with the alleged axman.

Powerful, eloquent, and paced like the most riveting of thrillers, Strange Piece of Paradise is the electrifying account of Terri's investigation into the mystery of her near murder. A startling profile of a psychopath, a sweeping reflection on violence and the myth of American individualism, and a moving record of a brave inner journey from violence to hope, this searing, unforgettable work is certain to be one of the most talked about books of the year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Audio
• Release date: May 2, 2006
• ISBN: 9781427200105

Terri Jentz

Terri Jentz is a screenwriter and lives in Los Angeles. Strange Piece of Paradise is her first book.

Reviews for Strange Piece of Paradise

[well7readneck · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

True memoir of woman going back to Oregon to find who assaulted her as a young woman. Julia's recommendation. Hard to read, brutal in parts, but well written and transforming.

[tracybooks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

True memoir of woman going back to Oregon to find who assaulted her as a young woman. Julia's recommendation. Hard to read, brutal in parts, but well written and transforming.

[msf59 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Terri Jentz, the author, was on a cross-country bike trip, with her Yale roommate, in 1977, when the unspeakable happened: while camping in a tent, in the Oregon desert, a man drove a pick up over their tent and attacked them with an ax. No one was ever charged with this horrific crime. Fifteen years later, Jentz returns to the small town where the event happened and starts doing some sleuthing herself. She makes some incredible discoveries. This is a solid true-crime tale. It could have used a little more editing but that is a minor quibble. Worked well on audio too.

[ibeth_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Terri Jentz is pretty impressive. Not only does she survive a horrific attack and then rescue both her friend and herself, but she also returns to the scene of the crime years later to conduct her own investigation, since the statute of limitations has expired and the police never figured out whodunnit. I found the book to be difficult to read, unfortunately. One reason is the writing style. Jentz tends to repeat herself, and while as a human being I understand (if I were attacked with an axe, I'm sure I'd talk a lot about my scars also), as a reader, I found myself skimming. I think the prose could have been tightened considerably (no need to harp on the phrase 'strange piece of paradise' . . . or to describe every single return visit to the scene of the crime . . . or to describe multiple times what happened to her sleeping bag.) Another reason is that Jentz' investigation brought out stories of other awful crimes, including crimes against children, that I don't tolerate well. I like reading the "how we caught the evildoer" true crime investigations, but I don't like reading "here's the evil event told in tortuous detail" stories. I did my best to skip over those parts, but that meant I skipped a lot. (I realize this makes me a less than ideal reviewer.) Jentz handles other peoples' stories sensitively, appropriately employing pseudonyms at times. What I appreciated most about the book was Jentz' realization that the crime affected many people besides the direct victims. We are none of us alone.

[greeniezona · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I found this book so very compelling and haunting. It was hard to put down. I read it ages ago, so I can't remember all the details, but I do feel like it seared a permanent mark into my consciousness.

[etbm2003 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I agree with what many other reviewers here have said--this book could have been much shorter and might well have been better off remaining a private journal for the author. I can completely understand her quest to find the man who nearly killed her and her friend, but it seems like once she lands on the likeliest suspect she begins twisting any and all "evidence" she might find to fit her previously-decided-upon conclusion. She clings to the smallest, often unsubstantiated details and to hearsay evidence from a variety of people who were not even close to the crime when it was perpetrated, 15 years before she began her investigation. Jentz seems to have gotten what she wanted out of writing this book--a sense of closure--but I as a reader was left with far more questions than answers and a lingering concern that her prime suspect (whose name is changed in the book, thank goodness) may, through the vehicle of this story, have been tried in the court of public opinion and been found guilty--by the author, anyway--despite a total lack of hard evidence. I give this book two stars because I applaud Jentz's courage in facing a part of her life which obviously shook her very deeply, but there is just not enough substance to make a compelling narrative or, in my opinion, convince a reader that the crime has been deeply and objectively investigated and can now be laid to rest.

[elsyd_19 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I read this book as an "assignment" by one of my daughters. I plowed through more pages than I would have otherwise. In the end I found this both heartening and disheartening. I have driven all those Oregon highways many times and am now struck by what little we know of what goes on in any area. I am struck by (not for the first time) of man's inhumanity to both man and animal. And while I am not a naive, I was shocked by the atrocities perpetrated by men, on women.

[dianes_54 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This one is a hard one to review. I think someone should have done more edited -- I nearly gave up early in the book. The second half picked up and was more interesting. Still, I'm glad I read it.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

At the age of 20, the author and a college room-mate decide to bike across America. On the seventh night of their trip, they are attacked as they are sleeping in their tent in an Oregon park. Someone drives over the tent, the proceeds to attack the two women with an ax. The perpetrator was never tried or convicted.Fifteen years later, the author begins a quest to solve the crime and to discover truths about herself. She returns to Oregon and, with the help of some of the local police, of victims' advocates and of citizens in the small town where the attack took place, she pieces together the story of what happened that night and since.This was the kind of book I carried with me figuratively as well as literally. I couldn't stop thinking about Terri Jentz and her quest until I had completed the book. The book is a great mystery/crime story. And, it also looks at how a horrifying event can touch the lives of many people, some of whom weren't even directly involved in it. It looks at violence against women, at justice and at the universal need for closure.I was fascinated by both the true crime story and the inner seekings of the author.

[sharonk21 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Two otherwise unaccompanied young women students from Yale set out to conquer the bicentenial bicycle trail in the late 1970s. Camping alone in Oregon, they are sleeping peacefully in their tent when a truck intentionally flattens their shelter. One woman is left pinned underneath the truck while the attacker uses an ax to try to kill the second woman. He then backs his truck off of the author and starts to attack her with the ax. All she is able to see is his clothing. She holds the ax and meekly asks him to quit: after hesitation he does, jumps back in his truck, and drives off into the night, leaving her friend almost dead and her with serious wounds from the ax.The book deals with much more than the actual crime: it covers her friendship with the second woman, her intial psychic and physical trauma from the totally unexpected violence, and later, much later, her quest for the attacker, who has never been identified.The latter is a journey: the statute of limitations on the crime has run out. But increasingly as she grows older she wants to know what kind of person would do such a thing and exactly who that person is now and who he was back then. She realizes that she tried to cope with the crime against her by distancing herself from it (something she thought only her friend had done) and that such a tactic may not have worked to her advantage psychologically. After several years of investigation and with the help of police and victims advocates, she finally identifies to her own satisfaction just who the person was. The real story is how and what she found out and how she found that violence against women is and was much more pervasive in our culture than she had previously recognized.

[dfullmer_3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a haunting book about two girls bound on an across country bike ride who are run over and attacked one night as they slept.