It is a startling image to match a startling tale.
The soon-to-be-released autobiography of Samantha Geimer, raped at age 13 by director Roman Polanski, is gaining attention for its cover as well as its content.
Geimer, who opens up for the first time in The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, has chosen an image of herself taken by Polanski days before he assaulted her in February, 1977.
Geimer, now 50, is reported to have written the book to tell her side of the story.
The Hollywood Reporter said the images came to light during Geimer’s civil case against Polanski in 1988, in which she was awarded $500,000. He was also ordered to hand over all images he took of Geimer, but she believes there are more.
Geimer’s lawyer, Lawrence Silver, wrote in the book that the photographs would most likely not have been discovered if not for the case.
The memoir’s publisher promises the book will take the reader “far beyond the headlines” and reveal a girl “simultaneously wise beyond her years and yet terribly vulnerable”. Geimer is described as “eternally cast as a background player in her own story”.
The book is released in September in Australia through Simon & Schuster.
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– Sydney Morning Herald
