S&S to publish Jaycee Lee Dugard book on freedom

Simon & Schuster is set to publish Freedom: My Book of Firsts, a memoir by Jaycee Lee Dugard, who was kidnapped in the US aged 11 and held prisoner for 18 years.

This is the second title from Duggard, the first, A Stolen Life, published in 2011, sold over 1.5m copies in the US alone, the publisher said.

Dugard was kidnapped on 10th June 1991 in South Lake Tahoe, California, as she was walking from her home to her school bus stop. She remained missing for 18 years, until 2009, when her captor, Phillip Garrido, a convicted sex offender, was arrested.

In her new book, Dugard will tell the story of her first experiences after years in captivity, the joys that accompanied her newfound freedom and the challenges of adjusting to life on her own.

Dugard said: “There is life after something tragic happens. Life doesn’t have to end if you don’t want it to. It’s all in how you look at it. Somehow, I still believe that we each hold the key to our own happiness and you have to grab it where you can in whatever form it might take.”

The book will be published on 12th July in hardcover, e-book, and audio editions by Simon & Schuster in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, and India after a deal was struck by Morton Janklow of Janklow & Nesbit Associates and Nancy Seltzer of Nancy Seltzer & Associates.