3 Review(s)

In This Skillfully Wrought, Powerful Study, A Terrorism Expert, National Security Adviser (The Ultimate Terrorists), And Lecturer At Harvard, Returns To A Definitive Episode Of Terror In Her Own Early Life And Traces Its Grim, Damaging Ramifications. Having Grown Up In Concord, Mass., In 1973, Stern, Then 15, And Her Sister, A Year Younger, Were Forcibly Raped At Gunpoint By An Unknown Intruder; When The Police Reopened The Case In 2006, Stern Was Compelled To Confront The Devastating Experience. The Police Initially Tied The Case To A Local Serial Rapist, Who Served 18 Years In Prison Before Hanging Himself. Stern`S Painful Journey Takes Her Back To The Traumatic Aftershocks Of The Rape, When She Began To Affect A Stern, Hard Veneer Not Unlike The Stiff-Upper-Lip Approach To Survival Her Own German-Born Jewish Father Had Assumed After His Childhood Years Living Through Nazi Persecution. Covering Up Her Deep-Seated Sense Of Shame With Entrenched Silence, Stern Had A Classic Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder�Which She Was Only Able To Recognize After Her Own Work Interviewing Terrorists. Stern`S Work Is A Strong, Clear-Eyed, Elucidating Study Of The Profound Reverberations Of Trauma.