What a Body Remembers

A Memoir of Sexual Assault and Its Aftermath

By: Karen Stefano

Narrated by: Nicole Poole

On a summer night in 1984, 19-year-old UC Berkeley sophomore Karen Thomas leaves her uniformed patrol job at the University of California Police Department and walks home alone in darkness. At the threshold of her apartment a man assaults her at knife point. After a soul chilling struggle she manages to escape and call 911. Police catch her assailant, she identifies him, and he is arrested.

Fast forward 2014, 30 years after her assault, when her life, once again, appears to be crumbling. As she stumbles her way through the days, navigating a dying marriage, devastating financial loss, and an elderly mother slipping into dementia at disheartening speed, she becomes fascinated by her own anxiety, by the PTSD still triggered by the sound of footsteps and she wonders, why does the body remember what the mind tries so desperately to forget? Her questions prompt an obsession with her assailant: Whatever became of him? What is he doing now? She begins a quest of excavation, determined to find out, tracking down the police report and court file from her case, and on the thirtieth anniversary of her attack returns to Berkeley and the scene of her assault. What she discovers is life altering.

©2019 Karen Stefano (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Loved Redding it

As one who has experianced trauma this was very Nice to read. And so so important to spread awareness around this subject . It has an insane amount of impact on a person! Recomend!

Not sexually assaulted

This book was not about a sexual assault and should not be advertised as such.