Writer Finds Beginning in an Ending

And that's where the sequel picks up. At 18, she meets and marries the guy next door, an ex-convict who had converted to Islam in prison, who cheats on her, rapes her, gets a girlfriend pregnant and winds up back in prison.

Tate becomes pregnant and, in a fierce attempt to take charge of her future, has an abortion. She parties a bit and explores casual sex.

And somehow she stays focused on her dream of becoming a journalist as she redefines herself and her spirituality and steps completely out of the Muslim religion she had known.

Literary agents and book publishers weren't easily convinced of the book's mass appeal. It was self-aggrandizing, some said. Nobody is buying memoirs, others said. But Tate kept digging and writing. She laid it all out there, raw as it is in parts, without blinking or blushing.

Zane was no fool.

Tate, editor of the Washington Informer, said she called Zane strictly for business reasons one day but realized during the conversation that Zane's imprint might be a perfect fit for her memoir. "Zane is telling stories that had not been told before," Tate said. "I didn't want to pander to people's interest in sex. On the other hand, if it gets them to pick it up and read it and reflect on it and act, then it's worth it."

Zane said she was fascinated by the concept of the book. "I thought it was a book that needed to be out there because I knew there were other women dealing with the same situation," she said.

The crowd's reaction to Tate's story at a book festival in Harlem this summer showed its potential impact, Zane said. "People were immediately drawn to the power of what she had to say and sought her out afterward," she said.

Tate, who got married in December and goes by Sonsyrea Tate Montgomery, said she was motivated in part by a desire to explain herself (her family always thought of her as the "good girl") and her two most outwardly rebellious sisters (she has four sisters and four brothers; a fifth brother died) to the older generations of women in her family.

"I wanted to explain that even though the best intentions were made -- you raised us with love, you raised us with faith -- we ended up some confused little rascals," she said. "We ended up some angry little rascals. We either deal with this now, or pay later. I chose to deal with it now."