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A long 'Strange' trip

Imagine, if you will, a woman investigating her own murder 15 years after the fact. It would, of course, be impossible – that is, unless the woman survived, or unless the murder in question was a psychological one.
For Terri Jentz, both are true.
In 1977 a 19-year-old Jentz and Shayna, her best friend from college, embarked on a cross-country bike trip. On June 22, while camped in a local park near Bend, Oregon, they awoke in the middle of the night as a truck ran over their tent. The driver then jumped out and attacked the two girls with a hatchet, leaving them for dead.
Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri JentzBut they did not die. At least not in the traditional sense. The crime was never solved, even though many of the people in the small town where it happened believed the man who did it was still in their midst.
In "Strange Piece of Paradise" (Farrar Straus Giroux), Jentz returns to the site of her attack and attempts to unravel both what happened that night and how it impacted her psyche. The result is a mix of true crime, detective story, memoir, journal and an examination of violence in America.
"This investigation was more than a crime-fighting exercise: it was a voyage of discovery, a ritual of imposing the present on the past to regain my will, an odyssey to find the truth of the living past," she writes.
That Jentz is a lesbian does not play a large role in "Strange Piece of Paradise." Besides one brief reference to her present day "partner," a reader without prior knowledge of Jentz's sexual orientation would have little reason to even guess.
It is clear, however, by Jentz's characterization of her relationship with Shayna that Jentz had an intense crush on the girl – a crush that was not reciprocated.
Jentz spends a large chunk of the book analyzing the long-term psychological impact the crime had on her, specifically how it damaged her relationship with Shayna. By the night of the attack, the girls' relationship was already strained. By Jentz's own account it was clear that Shayna was sick of her and probably regretted going on the trip to begin with. Yet Jentz seems surprised and dismayed that the horrific attack they shared would drive them further apart rather than bring them closer together. I couldn't help but want to tell Jentz, "She's just not into you. Move on."
"I think it's very common for young girls to have crushes on each other. Lots of girls who end up being heterosexual can relate to my infatuation with this girl," Jentz told AfterEllen.com. "I didn't want to rob the book of its universality."
Besides, the man who attacked them didn't do so because Jentz set off his gay-dar. At 19, Jentz was probably not even out to herself, let alone out traveling across the country waving a rainbow flag. But by choosing to not reveal her sexuality, Jentz's infatuation with Shayna is without proper context. Jentz comes across as over-eager and needy. It's hard to blame Shayna for withdrawing from her.
The book picks up when Terri meets Dee Dee and Bob, the parents of a young woman who was murdered and fervent advocates of victims' rights. The pair takes a keen, even paternal, interest in Terri and her quest and hit the ground running as mom-and-pop detectives on her behalf.
"Often a murder investigation runs dry after 24 hours," Jentz writes. "Even after seven days, the trail might run cold. This investigation was 160,000 hours old and still alive."
Throughout her investigation, Jentz is told by law enforcement officers to just forget about it.
"By now I had fully comprehended that it was a non-prosecutable crime because the statute of limitations on attempted murder ran out after three years," she writes. "I could have wound up a head and torso with no arms and legs – but after June 22, 1980, as long as I was a living, breathing head and torso with no arms or legs, the perpetrator could have shouted to the rooftops, 'I did it!' and he still would have remained a free man."
Though it was too late for her, Jentz didn't want to see other victims of violence denied justice. With Dee Dee and Bob's help, Jentz actually got the statue of limitations law in the state of Oregon changed.
Writing this book was clearly a cathartic project for Jentz. "I have spent many years willing my scattered energies into a single stream – this story," she writes. However, the best of "A Strange Piece of Paradise" takes place outside of her head. The true crime/amateur detective aspect of the book has great momentum, but it gets tripped up by Jentz's often-repetitive psychological musings. As a reader, when I'm caught up in the heat of the chase, the last thing I want is an overdose of naval-gazing. At over 500 pages, "Strange Piece of Paradise" is a diluted version of what should be a chilling tale that keeps the reader up all night.
Still, Jentz offers a unique perspective of the personal impact of evil in a time when that word is batted around and overused by politicians and pundits. Jentz quotes social critic Lance Morrow, the author of "Evil": "A lively awareness of evil, once a part of any healthy mind, must be re-instilled in the consciousness of the West. Without an awareness of evil, people become confused, fail to anticipate its ruthless possibilities."
So perhaps it's appropriate that Jentz's book isn't written simply for the voyeur in us all. As Jentz writes, "We are victims of random circumstance. At the same time, we are living meaningfully in a meaningful universe: telling a story makes it so."

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