Authors: Jaycee Dugard
A Stolen Life
Simon & Schuster
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Copyright © 2011 by Luna Lee, Inc.
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First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition July 2011
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Designed by Joy O’Meara
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dugard, Jaycee Lee, 1980-
A stolen life : a memoir / Jaycee Lee Dugard. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Dugard, Jaycee Lee, 1980—Kidnapping, 1991. 2. Kidnapping victims—California—Biography. 3. Kidnapping—California. 4. Sexually abused children—California—Biography. I. Title.
HV6574.U6D84 2011
364.15'4092—dc23
[B]
2011018938
ISBN 978-1-4516-2918-7
ISBN 978-1-4516-2920-0 (ebook)
ISBN-13: 978-0-8572-0711-1
Dedicated to my daughters.
For the times we’ve cried together,
laughed together
And all the times in between.
The Starting of Printing for Less
Raising the Girls in the Backyard
Therapeutic Healing with a Twist
This book might be confusing to some. But keep in mind throughout my book that this was a very confusing world I lived in. I think to truly begin to understand what it was like, you would have had to be there, and since I wish that on no one, this book is my attempt to convey the overwhelming confusion I felt during those years and to begin to unravel the damage that was done to me and my family.
You might be suddenly reading about a character that was never introduced, but that’s how it was for me. It didn’t feel like a sequence of events. Even after I was freed, moments are fragmented and jumbled. With some help, I have come to realize that my perspective is unique to abduction. I don’t want to lose that voice, and therefore I have written this book how it came to me naturally. I’m not the average storyteller … I’m me … and my experience is very uncommon. Yes, I jump around with tangents, but that’s sometimes the way my mind works. If you want a less confusing story, come back to me in ten years from now when I sort it all out!
Jacyee Lee Dugard, age eleven
Let’s get one thing straight! My name is Jaycee Lee Dugard. I was kidnapped by a stranger at age eleven. For eighteen years I was kept in a backyard and not allowed to say my own name. What follows will be my personal story of how one fateful day in June of 1991 changed my life forever.