New book, TV interview bring Smarts back into spotlight

"This has been a strange, hard, sometimes rewarding, but mostly painful journey," Ed and Lois Smart — the parents of kidnap victim Elizabeth Smart — write in their new book, "Bringing Elizabeth Home, A Journey of Faith and Hope."

The book is due in stores in early November — soon after Elizabeth herself is scheduled to appear on her first TV interview.

Echoing the book's title, the hourlong "Katie Couric Special: Bringing Elizabeth Home," is to be broadcast Friday, Oct. 24, on NBC.

Elizabeth, now a 15-year-old high school freshman, told Couric that she's "still pretty much the same person," and that her nine-month ordeal has made her "more compassionate for the homeless," according to the network.

Couric interviewed the teen this week at a family ranch near Salt Lake City and also talked with her parents about the police investigation and how their faith helped them during the nine months Elizabeth was gone.

"It was a miracle that we could function as a family together because these . . . types of things can wreck marriages and pull families apart, and I think we've become stronger and closer as a family," Ed Smart told Couric.

That perspective is reiterated in the Smarts' book, an advance copy of which was forwarded to the Deseret Morning News.

The book sets the stage on the first page:

"We awoke to the sound of a voice filled with fright — that of our 9-year-old daughter, Mary Katherine.

" 'She's gone. Elizabeth is gone.' "

Throughout the 205-page, $22.95 book the Smarts, with writer Laura Morton's assistance, give their account of what happened on June 5, 2002, and in the months that followed.

Interspersed are eight pages of black-and-white photos of Elizabeth and her family.

The book is written in three voices — Morton's and parts where Ed and Lois speak in the first person. Chapter 10 is titled "Ed," with the next chapter called "Lois." Two more chapters near the end carry the same titles.

"Unfortunately," Ed Smart writes, "when the investigators started looking at our family, the obvious thought was that I might be involved." Smart says that police challenged his honesty, and that the episode marked one of the lowest points in his life.

"The police were pushing me to the point of breaking — which was their goal," he says. "If they could break me, surely I'd confess. But confess to what? I had done nothing wrong."

Lois Smart explores the heartache of missing her daughter and trying to come to terms with what had happened.

"As hard as it was for me to accept, the realization that Elizabeth might be dead continued to set in," Lois Smart writes.

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