This memoir begins with the violent attack This is what I remember My lips were cut I bit down on them when he grabbed me from behind and covered my mouth He said these words Ill kill you if you scream page 5 lines 1 3 Alice Sebold was only eighteen years old when she was raped on her campus at Syracuse in 1981 She sets up the scene describing the rape and how her rapist robbed her of her virginity Alice describes the rape in great detail beginning with a side story of a girl who was murdered a