Spiegel & Grau

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

admin — Wed, 05 May 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Piper Kerman recounts the nightmare that is the judicial system in her memoir Orange Is the New Black. This is a gentle introduction to life behind bars compared to the stories of other less fortunate prisoners. Kerman spent one year of her life in a minimum-security federal women's prison in Connecticut for money laundering. Surprisingly, the worst events didn't even happen within the prison itself. She was indicted on a minor drug charge committed ten years prior; she then had to wait another five years to even be sentenced.

Her jail experience wasn't as bad as she thought it would be, though it was no vacation. Piper was subjected to humiliating strip searches, strict rules, nonsensical regulations, verbal abuse, and sexual harassment by her boss while she was working hard as a prison electrician. She later had to finish her yearlong sentence by traveling via the notorious Con Air, and staying at other worse prisons in order to testify. On the (very slim) bright side, she learned vital life lessons from other prisoners. Kerman recalls these women and her friendships with them through tender sentimentality and brutally succinct detail.

I felt very touched by the solidarity of prisoners, as well as the descriptions of holidays and birthdays spent in prison. The women found joy doing one another's hair and nails. They also enjoyed craft projects, such as tailoring their prison uniforms, creating blankets for family, and (on one funny occasion) a crocheted yarn replica of a penis as a gag gift for another prisoner. They also cooked with the few resources they had, and a recipe for Prison Cheesecake is included in the book.

Most importantly, the author owns up to her own personal privilege. Piper is a self-described "blond-haired, blue-eyed, bohemian WASP," and a Smith College graduate. She realizes how infuriating the treatment from the system was for her, and how it wasted years of her life. However, she often proclaims how much worse it would have been if she were not a privileged white person with a private lawyer. She feels for her fellow prisoners, most of whom face dismal options and impossible challenges. Prison does little to educate offenders of their crimes and does not prepare them for the outside world once they are finally released.

In reality, prison does little to rehabilitate those who commit non-violent crimes, and there seems to be little distinction between the treatment of non-violent and violent offenders. In this memoir, it is noted that the minimum and maximum security prisons were within close proximity of each other and often traded inmates back and forth. I agree with Kerman that those who commit non-violent crimes would be better remedied, and more beneficial to the community, if they were ordered to do multiple years of community service instead of traumatic and expensive ($30,000 per year per inmate) prison time.

Orange Is the New Black is engaging, educational, moving, irritating, funny, morose, and extremely hard to put down.

Written by: Jacquie Piasta, May 4th 2010

Another Life Altogether

admin — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:01:00 +0000

By Elaine Beale

Spiegel & Grau

Elaine Beale crafts the engrossing coming-of-age and coming out story of Jesse Bennet in Another Life Altogether. Jesse lives on the northeast coast of England, one of the world’s fastest eroding coastlines. The constant threat of the breakdown of the cliffs is mirrored by Jesse’s mother’s constant threat of mental collapse. The book begins with her mother in Delapole, the local mental hospital, though Jesse tells her classmates that her mother is on a cruise; her hope is to impress a girl she has a crush on in her class. But when her mother is discharged, in an attempt to escape judgment and get a fresh start, her father moves them into a dilapidated house in a small village.

Jesse is desperate to begin her own new life at the new school somewhere higher in the pecking order. She gets her wish as she develops a friendship with Tracey, a girl with a mean streak and an older sister, Amanda, that Jesse falls for. With her unrequited love for Amanda, and a mother who spends most of her days and nights in bed, Jesse spends much of her time writing letters to Amanda that she never sends. The letters allow her an escape and provide an outlet for her feelings in a world where she feels no one understands her or cares about her.

The layers of life develop throughout the book as Jesse battles to reconcile what she thinks her life should be and what it actually is. She wrestles alone trying to understand her sexuality and steals a book from the local mobile library on homosexuality that still doesn’t help her reconcile her feelings towards Amanda to the fact that nearly everyone around her judges homosexuality as perverse and wrong. Her father ignores the stress and trauma of the family life, preferring to yell at the television, hoping that his wife will snap out of it, and assuming Jesse can carry on by herself. Jesse’s mother struggles with what seems to be bipolar disorder; manic at times and nearly catatonic at others, she is trapped by her own brain.

The idea that mental illness is something that can be shaken off like a blanket permeates the book; the mother wants to be better but can’t. Another theme throughout is the almost impossible cruelty that kids can inflict upon each other; regardless of the time period (the book is set in the 1970s), those who are different are relentlessly picked on.

At the book’s climax, I kept desperately hoping that Jesse would do the right thing. (Don't worry. I won’t spoil it for you!) And at the end of the book, while Jesse has changed and grown throughout, we see that her life still has to carry on. There is no happily-ever-after, but there is a waking up: an acknowledgment that appearances and popularity often mean nothing and that ignoring things won’t make them go away.

Another Life Altogether is an extraordinary true-to-life book, and Beale tells a number of important and poignant stories all at once with great skill.

Written by: Kristin Conard, December 3rd 2009

One More Year

admin — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:30:00 +0000

By Sana Krasikov

Spiegel & Grau

Sana Krasikov, in her first published collection, brings a filling and current group of short stories, and in them, creates honest characters whose interactions cannot be forgotten. Dramatic and awful at times, desperate and sparse, the stories move through time as each day does. Eagerly, you turn the page, hoping for the best, but you see it doesn't always happen.

As a graduate of the reknown Iowa Writers' Workshop, Krasikov sounds like Raymond Carver at times: despairing and hopeless with a sliver of brightness that develops through clear storytelling. Capturing fond emotion and likening the everyday uncomfortable human element of strangers, the author leaves no image unseen. Reflecting the roots of Krasikov's life, characters often originate from both the Ukraine and the Soviet Republic of Georgia in recent times and are transplanted to the East Coast of the United States. In developing characters, she juxtaposes and successfully conveys the understanding and assimilation of the Western lifestyle, which proves trying for the immigrants. Necessity for survival exists as uncertainties prevail.

Somber and gray, dirty and stark, stories often involve senses of infidelity and mistrust by confused working souls. In addition, they present a weaving of passionate and determined people holding high expectations of relatives believed to be just as compassionate, but who are confused, real, and imperfect. In "Asal," the main character encounters her husband's mistress and the reader is left to wonder how she can interact with her so sensibly, witnessing the heated conversation of the deteriorating relationship. Often, family members add backstory and a thicker fabric of life to the stories.

The images Krasikov creates demonstrates her eloquent mastering of the craft. As a reader, you feel her images striking deeply, and you need to breathe after each story because you completely witness the heated banter or grevious silence between characters. The author leaves no point unseen and no character untouched. As the reader, you exist among the characters and feel the ambiance conveyed through remarkable definition.

Read this collection and go for a walk. Appreciate the world around you because One More Year definitely becomes a part of you. You take it with you wherever you go.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, October 15th 2008