Book Reviews & Lists

This book has been sitting on our shelf at the Putnam Library for the past 6 years and as many times as I have shelved it, I avoided reading it because it was so unlike anything Wally Lamb has ever written. Now I wished I had not judged the book by its cover. It was one of the most enlightening reads about people whose experiences in life were so different from my own. It was like visiting a foreign culture, but this one just happens to take place in our own backyard.
 
This collection of short stories was written by ten female inmates of the York Correctional Institute in Connecticut, through a writer’s workshop with the author Wally Lamb. As I read each story my eyes were opened, my heart broke at the atrocities that humans inflict on one another, but mostly it provoked my way of thinking. These testimonies were at time overwhelming to read, and except for the grace of God, I can honestly say that here is little that separates me from the women of York.
 
As I pass this book on to others, there is just one message…while most prisoners commit crimes that put them where they are, please remember, that’s not WHO they are. Many of them are wounded and damaged, and if they had been given the love, compassion and kindness that is every person’s right, perhaps their lives could have been changed.
 
Submitted by Patricia Jensen from the Putnam Public Library.