Strange Piece of Paradise: A Return to the American West to Investigate My Attempted Murder -- And Solve the Mystery of Myself is a non-fiction book by the American writer Terri Jentz. It was released in 2006.
Terri Jentz and her friend Shayna Weiss are Yale students cycling across America in 1977. After stopping to camp at Cline Falls State Park in Oregon, they are brutally attacked when a man runs over their tent with a pick-up truck and assaults them with an ax. Despite their injuries, both survive. Weiss suffers partial blindness and memory loss. Jentz, her body scarred, bears her injuries mostly in guilt, anger, and fear.
To help confront these feelings, Jentz returns to the area fifteen years later to investigate the crime even though the statute of limitations on attempted murder prevents her attacker's prosecution. During her investigation, she meets other victims of violent crime and their advocates who help her follow the most promising lead: a man whom locals have always suspected as the perpetrator.
Jentz told part of her story in an interview for C-SPAN2 BookTV on 23 March 2007 and also in Language of Anger, Forgiveness: A Time to Love and a Time to Hate, a PBS Video which premiered on 17 April 2011.
The caption for the C-SPAN video indicates that Jentz is an activist for Equality Now.