Jessica Stern

"It seemed so obvious to me that writing a book about my own rape would ruin my career," says terrorism expert Jessica Stern (she once served on President Clinton's National Security Council staff and inspired the Nicole Kidman film The Peacemaker). Her latest book, Denial: A Memoir of Terror, examines not religious extremists, but a serial child rapist. (As Stern says, the book "became too interesting for me not to write.") Catch a more personal side of the author tonight at McNally.