Written by Prisoners

Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters by Wally Lamb (2004). ReganBooks. ISBN: 006059537X.

           From Publishers Weekly: “writings gleaned from a workshop he conducted for the female inmates of Connecticut's York Correctional Institution. The result is an intriguing and powerful collection of unlikely literary debuts. Although the 11 selections cover the range one might expect from writings plucked from a women's prison-tales of broken homes, poverty, violence, teenage pregnancy, race and gender bias, and, of course, crime and punishment-Lamb succeeds in giving the collection an intense, recognizable emotional core reminiscent of his blockbuster debut novel, She's Come Undone.”

Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing-A PEN American Center Prize Anthology, by Bell Gale Chevigny (2000). Arcade Publishing. ISBN: 1559705140.

           From Publishers Weekly: “Since 1973, PEN has sponsored an annual literary competition for prisoners. This anthology, selected from roughly 1700 submissions, showcases efforts that range widely in form, subject matter and quality. The book is broken into thematic sections such as "Initiation," "Time and Its Terms," "Family" and "Death Row." Though Chevigny made an attempt to include more women writers, women make up only 7% of the prison population, so the collection is overwhelmingly male. Not surprisingly, most of these stories, poems and essays lack polish. But even some of the roughest pieces are driven by an emotional power that gives the sense of spending time with people who are composing not just for pleasure but for high stakes: the definition of a self, the confronting of personal demons, even redemption.”

The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry, by Daniel Burton-Rose, Dan Pens, Paul Wright (1998). Common Courage Press. ISBN: 1567511406.

           From Amazon.com: “…inmates in American penitentiaries report on their living conditions and political concerns. They paint a bleak picture of the prison system, describing police brutality, substandard medical care, racism, and extremely crowded conditions. They discuss privately-run prisons, prison labor, weightlifting, and the effect of television on prisoner's lives.”

Despatriado, by Luis Perez (2002). Authorhouse, ISBN: 0759680841.  

           Combines poetry with a moving and humane autobiography that records the life of a man imprisoned for over three decades.

Individual Memoirs

World Apart : Women, Prison, and Life Behind Bars, by Christina Rathbone (2005). Random House. ISBN: 1400061660.

           From the book jacket: “Life in a women’s prison is full of surprises,” writes Cristina Rathbone in her landmark account of life at MCI-Framingham. And so it is. After two intense court battles with prison officials, Rathbone gained unprecedented access to the otherwise invisible women of the oldest running women’s prison in America.  The picture that emerges is both astounding and enraging. Women reveal the agonies of separation from family, and the prevalence of depression, and of sexual predation, and institutional malaise behind bars. But they also share their more personal hopes and concerns. Getting beyond the political to the personal, A World Apart is both a triumph of empathy and a searing indictment of a system that has overlooked the plight of women in prison for far too long.

           From Eve Ensler: “Cristina Rathbone is a fearless journalist, not only because she spent five years talking to women inmates at Framingham, but because she would not let the authorities keep her from telling the close-up truth about the lives of women in prison. This book will alter the way we think about the mothers, daughters, wives, and sisters our society has forgotten.”

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, by Ted Conover (2001). Vintage. ISBN: 0375726624.

           From Publishers Weekly: “Stymied by both the union and prison brass in his effort to report on correctional officers, Conover instead applied for a job, and spent nearly a year in the system, mostly at Sing Sing, the storied prison in the New York City suburbs. Fascinated and fearful, the author in training grasps some troubling truths: "we rule with the inmates' consent," says one instructor, while another acknowledges that "rehabilitation is not our job." As a Sing Sing "newjack" (or new guard), Conover learns the folly of going by the book; the best officers recognize "the inevitability of a kind of relationship" with inmates. He steps back to offer a history of the prison, the "hopelessly compromised" work of prison staff and the unspoken idealism he senses in fellow guards. With its nuanced portraits of officers and inmates, the book never preaches, yet it conveys that we ignore our prisons--an explosive (and expensive) microcosm of race and class tensions--at our collective peril.”

The Prisoner’s Wife, by Asha Bandele (2000). Scribner. ISBN: 0671021486.

           From Library Journal: This book explains the inexplicable: how a talented young poet from a good family and privileged background could meet, fall in love with, and marry a prisoner serving 20-to-life for murder.

Life on the Outside : The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett, by Jennifer Gonnerman (2004). Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN: 0374186871.

           From Publishers Weekly: “skillfully uses Bartlett, a tough, assertive woman who struggles to hold a job and keep her family together after their enforced years of separation, as an exemplar of the wide-ranging impact of incarceration on both ex-cons and the communities they leave behind, a social problem just beginning to be studied. This book takes its place as part of a current broad reconsideration of the war on drugs and the unprecedented prison-industrial complex it has created in America.”

Fiction

Yesterday Will Make You Cry, by Chester Himes (1999). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN: 039331829X.

           From Library Journal: “Himes launched his career with this 1937 autobiographical novel, which he wrote after being released from prison. The story follows protagonist Jimmy Monroe as he does time in the pen, and it deals honestly with racism, prison corruption, and homosexuality.”

Theologically Based

The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. By Mark Lewis Taylor (2001). Fortress Press. ISBN: 0800632834.

           From Harvard Divinity School professor Harvey Cox: “Taylor’s absorbing examination of our shameful execution obsession is without a doubt the finest and most discerning theological analysis of the death penalty now available.”

           Notes: Probably most appropriate for a clergy-led discussion group, since this can get theologically dense.

I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches That Changed the World by Martin Luther King, Jr (1992).  Rebound by Sagebrush. ISBN: 0613437497.

           Includes the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.

Broader societal issues

Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2004). Scribner. ISBN: 0684863871.

           From Publishers Weekly: “Politicians rail about welfare queens, crack babies and deadbeat dads, but what do they know about the real struggle it takes to survive being poor?... Readers learn that prison is just an extension of the neighborhood, a place most men enter and a rare few leave. They learn the realities of welfare: the myriad of misdemeanors that trigger reduction or termination of benefits, only compounding a desperate situation. They see teenaged drug dealers with incredible organizational and financial skills, 13-year-old girls having babies to keep their boyfriends interested, and incarcerated men who find life's first peace and quiet in solitary confinement.”