Last Dance For Grace : The Crystal Mangum Story — By Crystal Mangum with Vincent ClarkCrystal Mangum was a student at NC Central who in 2006 worked as an exotic dancer. In March of that year she went to a house to dance for a bachelor party being held for Duke University students. She claims she was raped by three people while there. The District Attorney had to withdraw from the case & was disbarred. The Attorney General took over and dropped all charges. She never had a day in court.
Working with Vincent Clark, a documentary film maker, this book is the story she would like the world to know about her. While there are two chapters about the events of March 2006 and one about the legal struggle that followed, the heart of the book is a six chapter biography and a final chapter on how she is putting this event behind her.
Her story is wrapped in three chapters by Vincent Clark who describes the Crystal he met in working on this project. A Foreword by Myra Shird, an NC A&T professor, looks at the broader implications and compares Crystal to Nathaniel Hawthorne's Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter.
If you are wanting to know what really happened that night in March 2006, this is not the book that will help you. If you want to know more about "the accuser" Crystal Mangum from her point of view, not that of the press or the Blogosphere, this is her story.
2 comments:
...and a final chapter on how she is putting this event behind her.
It appears that that final chapter hasn't yet been written. Ms Mangum is currently in Durham County Jail, charged with arson, child endangerment, attempted murder, etc. Charges having nothing to do with the Duke Lacrosse hoax, but rather, her own self-destructive tendencies that she has displayed for years.
Karma.
Thanks for reading my review. The final chapter I referred to is the book's, not hers. None of us are out of the woods until we are in our graves.
As you say these recent charges have nothing to do with the Duke Lacrosse situation.
It was actually her recent arrest that caused me to do the research that made me aware of this book. If you haven't, I suggest you read her book. Crystal has an interesting combination of "self-destructive tendencies" and articulate thought. It helped me gain insight into how an intelligent person like her can get in trouble through her self-destructive tendencies. I don't make excuses for anybody's bad behavior, but I do try to see why they act that way.
Post a Comment