About the Book
Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of
Crime
Copyright:
2020
Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN-13: 978-1635576122
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by Debora Harding
One Omaha winter day in
November 1978, when Debora Harding was just fourteen, she was abducted
at knifepoint from a church parking lot. She was thrown into a van,
assaulted, held for ransom, and then left to die as an ice storm
descended over the city.
Debora survived. She identified her attacker to the police and then
returned to her teenage life in a dysfunctional home where she was
expected to simply move on. Denial became the family coping strategy
offered by her fun-loving, conflicted father and her cruelly resentful
mother.
It wasn't until decades later - when beset by the symptoms of PTSD- that
Debora undertook a radical project: she met her childhood attacker
face-to-face in prison and began to reconsider and reimagine his complex
story. This was a quest for the truth that would threaten the lie at the
heart of her family and with it the sacred bond that once saved her.
Dexterously shifting between
the past and present, Debora Harding untangles the incident of her
kidnapping and escape from unexpected angles, offering a vivid, intimate
portrait of one family's disintegration in the 1970s Midwest.
Written with dark humor and
the pacing of a thriller, Dancing with the Octopus is a
literary tour de force and a groundbreaking narrative of reckoning,
recovery, and the inexhaustible strength it takes to survive.
Reviews
"With remarkable narrative skill, Harding untangles the lingering effects of family dysfunction and criminal trauma. This is a page-turner with a deep heart and soul, full of forgiveness but demanding of accountability." - BookPage, “Best Books of 2020: Memoirs”
“In this compelling and unflinching memoir which switches
between past and present, Harding... unravels the impact of this random
act of violence and of her dysfunctional childhood. It's a tale of
trauma and PTSD, but also of recovery through the healing power of
restorative justice, and of enduring love.” ―Bookseller,
Editor's Choice