{"product_id":"dancing-with-the-octopus-a-memoir-of-a-crime-9781635577846","title":"Dancing with the Octopus: A Memoir of a Crime","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFor readers of \u003ci\u003eEducated \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Glass Castle, \u003c\/i\u003e a harrowing, redemptive and profoundly inspiring memoir of childhood trauma and its long reach into adulthood, named one of the Best True Crime Books by \u003ci\u003eMarie Claire.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eOne 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDebora 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIt 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.\u003cbr\u003eDexterously 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.\u003cbr\u003eWritten with dark humor and the pacing of a thriller, \u003ci\u003eDancing with the Octopus \u003c\/i\u003eis a literary tour de force and a groundbreaking narrative of reckoning, recovery, and the inexhaustible strength it takes to survive.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDebora Harding\u003c\/b\u003e grew up in the Midwest and then spent three decades immersed in Washington politics. While cycling across America she met her English husband. She is mother of two children and is now a full-time writer and activist. She splits her time between the United States and Great Britain.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Bloomsbury Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50678871294226,"sku":"9781635577846","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_92fa206c-261f-4a13-8af3-90b78edea0a0.jpg?v=1733895479","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/dancing-with-the-octopus-a-memoir-of-a-crime-9781635577846","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}