True crime is one kind of nonfiction I can tear through. Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise was engrossing on a level most true crime doesn’t reach. It’s probably because Terri Jentz lived through this crime, kept it as part of her, and finally, took the case up to find that man who trespassed upon her campsite and tried to kill her. The story is gripping, her search for truth engrossing, and her journey is told with a true voice. It’s the best nonfiction I have read in awhile.
When Terri Jentz was a college kid in 1977, she and a friend began a cross-country bike tour. Their goal was to follow the year-old Centennial bike path across the United States. They made it just over a week. Eight days in they stopped for the night in Cline Falls, Oregon. That night, a cowboy brutally attacked them, driving over their tent with his truck and attacking them with an ax. It was a cruel, unprovoked attack, and both girls barely survived.
Nearly 20 years after the attack, Terri decides to return to the scene of the crime, a community that has taken the attack into itself and its memories. The “two girls from Cline Falls” have been in their minds for 20 years, and the community wants answers as much as it wants to hide the truth. Jentz won’t let them hide anymore. With some new allies, she tries to uncover the truth after such a long time, facing the difficulties of the criminal justice system and the inner workings of the small towns surrounding Cline Falls. Eventually, she finds some sort of truth and healing in the process.
Terri Jentz’s Strange Piece of Paradise is similar to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood in that it closely resembles a report, a true life, cleanly written report of a truly horrible crime. It is one that makes no sense and truly haunts the people involved, even remotely. The difference is Terri Jentz is that girl from Cline Falls, and it is her story.
Rating: 5 Purrs, for telling a true story even when it uncovered her own warts.
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