Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
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1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well- heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate 11187–424—one of the millions of people who disappear “down the rabbit hole” of the American penal system. From her first strip search to her final release, Kerman learns to navigate this strange world with its strictly enforced codes of behavior and arbitrary rules. She meets women from all walks of life, who surprise her with small tokens of generosity, hard words of wisdom, and simple acts of acceptance. Heartbreaking, hilarious, and at times enraging, Kerman’s story offers a rare look into the lives of women in prison—why it is we lock so many away and what happens to them when they’re there. Praise for Orange Is the New Black “Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can’t unbind.”—People (four stars) “I loved this book. It’s a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love “This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.”—Los Angeles Times “Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”—USA Today “It’s a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one—both for the reader and for Kerman.”—Newsweek Read more
Publisher : Random House Publishing Group; 0 edition (March 8, 2011)
Language : English
Paperback : 327 pages
ISBN-10 : 4
ISBN-13 : 94
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 5.1 x 0.67 x 8 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #24,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #65 in Criminology (Books) #208 in Sociology Reference #876 in Memoirs (Books)
#65 in Criminology (Books):
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Top Amazon Reviews
I had in the last month subscribed to Netflix, and in doing so, I had heard a lot of the hype about the new original series called Orange is the New Black. I watched the 13 episodes in a matter of a couple of days. I have to say I absolutely loved the show. I looked forward to sitting with my new Kindle and watching each new episode. It was really sad to have it come to an end so quickly because I really had enjoyed it so much. I happened to be listening to NPR one day and heard the show Fresh Air with Terri Gross. Her guest that day happened to be Piper Kerman. She is the woman who wrote this memoir of her year in a Women's Prison. I became even more intrigued with the differences that she was telling Terri about from the book to the show on Netflix. I then decided that I really wanted to hear the real story and see what it was like. I didn't hesitate to go right to Amazon.com and pick up a copy of the new paperback book Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman. I am very happy that I decided to get the book written by the person who actually lived the story. I will say that Netflix did an excellent job in creating a very good show that really did a super job in mixing in enough things that were for the entertainment factor of the show. It really didn't go overboard too much but just had the right mix in adding things that made the show seem like the story was really in line with Hollywood and at the same time maintaining enough parts of the truth to the real story that the book tells by the author. I am still reading it, but am going to be finishing it within the next two days and I am loving it as much as I loved watching each new show that came out. I really am hoping that Netflix will pick up the series for a second season just because it is a really different and fun show to watch. I would absolutely recommend this book as well as the Netflix original series to anyone. Piper is a very likable character in the show, and person in true life as she tells her story no holds barred. It is very interesting reading about all the wonderful women that she crossed paths with in of all places a prison. There is a lot of flat out honesty that she just tells her story with. It makes you really like her and most of the women that she became close friends with while she was in the Danbury Women's Prison of all places. It isn't like she had a great time being in prison but the way that she tells her story is very much like what I would think it would feel like if it was me who was in her place. All of the new experiences that she confronts and all the kind women who really helped her in the first few weeks of actually getting used to being in prison and the rules that she has to learn and the way that the "old timers" really did a great job in helping her in those first most terrifying early days when she got there really is very touching and extremely entertaining. I can imagine that she must have stayed in touch with some of the women who were going to be there long after she did her year, so that when it was time for mail every day, some of those incredibly kind and important women that Piper did get to know well are rewarded in getting letters from her I have to believe from time to time. Like I mentioned earlier, I would recommend this book to really anyone who enjoys reading about true life and just likes to read a good book every now and then. It really has been great to pick up at any time and plowing through a couple of chapters in one sitting. I am approaching the end of the book so I will miss it, but I have to say it is very touching and honest and entertaining. And not in the way that you would get any kind of pleasure out of someone else's unfortunate story. It is extremely hard to put down and every time I pick it up, I imagine finishing it. But I honestly like to delay the ending because it is such a great book. I think that it would be a very difficult book not to like for just about anyone. I say go ahead and grab it for the few $$ that it costs as you get your money back in the honest true story that must have been very hard for Piper to write and remember that year she spent in Danbury when she actually sat down to write the book. I have a younger sister who held the job of a Prison Guard, and I don't understand why she became entwined with that work because I have a hard time picturing the sister that I grew up with doing that kind of unpleasant work. She has since gone into the ARMY for a 5 year stay and has been out for about 8 years now and she is working as a cop in a large city. Something that wasn't expected of anyone in our family where members would pass down the badge of courage, because we didn't come from that type of a family who enjoys doing that, passing the baton on to the next member. It was just something that she ended up in as a line of work. I think mostly because of the power that she must feel when she puts on her uniform and gets into her cruiser everyday for work. She has turned into someone who I haven't known as an adult since she came back from Afghanistan and it has been hard to come to terms with the type of person that she has turned into. To know how she has become a very different person than the girl that I grew up with is extremely hard to deal with because I had never pictured her becoming the type of person that she has truly become. I think that it bothers me because I try to figure out what it was that turned her in the direction that she took because we had the same upper middle class life growing up with two parents who truly loved us and that she could come from such a "normal" family and choose to mix with the dark side of prison, then being in the ARMY, and now being a cop. But that is a whole other story itself. I just want to say that I am truly enjoying this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for something that is a fast and easy book to read! Happy reading if you decide to get it. I hope that this review will help you lean towards buying it! Enjoy!
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Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2013 by Kristin M. Pickford
This memoir took me to a place I had never been. Transported me, as good literature does. At times it was challenging to keep track of who everyone was, especially if they dropped out of the narrative for a long while, and then suddenly reappeared. Pops and Natalie and several others are easy to keep track of. I haven't seen the TV series, but from what I've heard, the book is better, or at least quite different. It kept my interest all the way through. I wish that we had been reminded of what all the abbreviations meant. I read this on a basic Kindle where it's very difficult to go backwards to check on things. Piper Kerman is a privileged, upper middle class, Smith educated white woman, and she writes from that perspective. However, she is humbled by her experience and respectful of the women she interacts with and becomes friends with. The ending was great--that is, the last section, where she is transferred to another facility. We get the contrast of the relatively calm and benign prison of Danbury (a prison nevertheless) to the holding facility in Chicago where it seems much more prison-like according to stereotypes the public at large might have of places of incarceration. If there's a focus or moral to this book, it's about mandatory lengths of sentences and how they are so unfair because there is no flexibility in them. Kerman is not making that case for herself--she had a short sentence. But she's making it, in a non-didactic way, for many of the others she met in prison who are serving long terms because the judges have no ability to change them. I would highly recommend this book. It's involving and well-written.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2015 by Pearl
It's famous now: "Orange Is The New Black." But we know her from Jenji Kohan's Netflix series and writer Piper Kernan is now known merely as "Chapman." To review the series along with Kernan's memoir is to compare "Gone With The Wind" to "The Color Purple." Both 1935. Both Pulitzer winners. Both teach. But one is sensationalistic, marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth. This is the book: The first chapter makes it hard to sympathize with Piper. Her actions are clearly foolish. Thoughtless, even selfish. Yet she claims no excuses. She doesn't claim to be duped; she doesn't claim ignorance and we're pleased when she walks away from the horrific damage of heroin traffic and disappears into SFO, thinking she'll never turn back. Clearly she's forced to. Two Federal agents show up at her door with indictments five years later. This is the first, subtle indication that our judicial system moves at a snail pace. Piper doesn't mention it; we're expected to think. If she must find her way, she leads us to find our own way too, and wisely, since our own transgressions must entangle with growth. Each chapter is both chronological and encompassing. Based on allowing us to glean her lessons through the events that unfold, each chapter tells us what life in Danbury Federal Prison is like but also brings us to a level of understanding about how all people are equally valuable. She brings us closer to the revelations that she learns. She understands that her crime fed the illness and destruction of hundreds of women with whom she now lives and needs. As the book progresses other subtleties arise among the slow day to day humiliations that Federal Prisons enjoy. Her language evolves through the book and becomes "street"- amusing for a Smith graduate. Her love and Alliegence for people for whom she once she gave no second thought becomes beautiful. Her manner of carefully assisting those too proud to show weakness grows more and more. Her ability to write: assist others achieve degrees; letters for appeal; her ability to make "prison cheesecake"(recipe humorously included), her foot rubs to her friend, serving more than a decade, who spends 16 hours a day running the kitchen. (Kate Mulgrew-the acting legend-changes this character for television and though brilliant, it loses some of the love.) piper's support from the outside is not only something that makes her the luckiest inmate, she shares her books, magazines and letters without ego. She conceals great news and also conceals her despondence. And there's a lot of despondence. Piper Kerman spends a lot of time in her head and we're there with her. She never takes for granted the remarkable support from friends and family outside and the reader wishes to find a love and devotion of her fiancée, Larry Smith, who travels from New York City to Danbury Connecticut every single Friday. We all wish to have this unconditional love, and Larry learned of Piper's smuggling vast amounts of drug money at 22 only after she's indicted. It appears that Piper takes over a year of incarceration to learn what Larry knew from the start. Midway through the book we ponder the chance that there will be no denouement. We're wrong. The last seventy-five pages are electric, terrifying, and Piper is forced to face the single piece of history that holds her back. This accelerates until the book ends with the speed and surprise that prison release is in reality. In three paragraphs, Piper is deposited, unreformed by the DOP, unprepared for re matriculation, alone on a strange street in a strange city. Kerman's reason for writing this book is to first answer the constant question, "What's it like?" She states in the paperback afterward that shows like "Oz" and "Cops" are ludicrous exaggerations. So too is Netflix's "Orange Is The New Black." But bad business in Hollywood is unwise. No one wants to be Fredo Corleone. It's clear there's a need for prison reform. The United States represents 5% of the world population yet the United States incarcerates 25% of the worlds prisoners. 90% of US incarcerated are non violent criminals on mandatory minimums (George H. W. Bush's "Three Strikes and your out.") in 1985, the US incarcerated 500,000 citizens. Today, 2.9 million. Piper Kerman took 279 pages to finally appear a hero. The evolution of the book mirrors her own evolution. The addendum is filled with non-profit organizations to help correctional reform. As Kerman said, Prison prepares you for a life in Prison; not for a life on the outside which is why there's a revolving door between Prison and Underprivileged neighborhoods. Imagine if the money we spent on prisons was directed toward schools, libraries, museums. What an improvement. So sure, we may begin this book with a chip on our shoulder, but Kerman makes no excuses, takes responsibility and this moving book has changed and inspired hundreds of thousands. Netflix, Jenji Kohan and "OITNB" is a show worth seeing for brilliance and entertainment, but Piper Kerman's book is in a category head and shoulders above the series and should be on your bed table now.
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Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2015 by David Seaman