The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski - Softcover

"This book is a total surprise. After decades of hearing about 'the Roman Polanski rape case' via third-hand reporting and ossified assumptions, here is the startlingly fresh, personal account from the young woman who lived through it, only to be set upon by the American legal system. Witty, snarky -- but also precise and thoughtfully observant not only about herself but also the mores and culture of a very different time -- Samantha Geimer is a reflective guide as she humanely tells of a complex violation that hurt but didn't defeat her."--Sheila Weller, author of the New York Times bestseller Girls Like Us

"Disarmingly honest and intensely personal, The Girl is a fascinating memoir: the absence of self-pity and frankness with which it is told is as shocking as the story itself."--Portia de Rossi, author of the New York Times bestseller Unbearable Lightness

"Sex, youth, and power have always fueled Hollywood and, as this book proves, never with more combustible results than in the story of Roman and Samantha. The Girl is a pleasure to read."--Joe Eszterhas, New York Times bestselling author of American Rhapsody and Hollywood Animal

"[The Girl] might be the most important and valuable book of the century so far...an emotional rollercoaster...smart and articulate....Geimer puts complicated thoughts out there, alongside her anger, not because she's too damaged to think clearly but because she can't bear the world's oversimplification....Her voice is strong."--The Guardian

"[Geimer] is able to channel the bewilderment she felt while in Mr. Polanski's company, and the terror that came later."--The New York Times

"Her explosive account... is at once a tabloidy page-turner, and a thoughtful memoir."--Time Magazine

"An astonishingly well-written, engaging book that is admirably subtle in its depiction of events... Her prose is lucid and compelling. The memoir, which winds its way through the painful vilification of her mother by the press, and a spectacular failure of the legal system, is masterfully clear-eyed."--Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"A feisty, almost jaunty you're not the boss of me account of a really awful thing and its long aftermath... The lively, pugnacious narrative voice manages to sound simultaneously like a provocative kid and a wised-up adult."--The New York Times Book Review

In this memoir that “might be the most important and valuable book of the century so far” (The Guardian), Samantha Geimer reveals for the first time her side of one of the most notorious and complex legal cases in American history.

March 1977, Southern California. Roman Polanski drives a rented Mercedes along Mulholland Drive to Jack Nicholson’s house. Sitting next to him is an aspiring model named Samantha Geimer. She is thirteen years old.

The undisputed facts of what happened in the hours that followed appear in the court record: Roman and Samantha spent hours taking pictures—on a kitchen counter, topless in a Jacuzzi. Wine and Quaaludes were consumed, balance and innocence were lost, and a young girl’s life was altered forever—eternally cast as a background player in her own story.

For months on end, the Polanski case dominated the media both in the United States and abroad. But even with the extensive coverage, there is much about that day—and the girl at the center of it all—that has remained a mystery. The few times Samantha Geimer has spoken publically, it has been largely in reaction to Polanski—his latest film, his arrests, his releases. Virtually the entire narrative of Samantha’s life, and even the details of the rape itself, have all been left untold.

Taking us far beyond the known headlines, this is the story of a girl who was simultaneously wise beyond her years and yet terribly vulnerable and even naive. Says New York Times bestselling author Sheila Weller, “Witty, snarky—but also precise and thoughtfully observant...Samantha Geimer is a reflective guide as she humanely tells of a complex violation that hurt but didn’t defeat her.”