by Piper Kerman
Published by Clarkson Potter, Crown Publishing Group
On April 6th, 2010
Genre: Memoir, Non-Fiction
Pages: 298
Source: purchased
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So y’all know I adore my book club with all my heart and think they are the coolest bunch of ladies in town, right? Well, now I have proof! Check out this picture of us vamping for the camera in our best orange {and black} for the July book club event. We are missing a handful of ladies but we still had an intense discussion about Orange is the New Black {both the book and the Netflix series.}
I didn’t get a picture of the food we had as I was starving and not even thinking about sharing with y’all. We decided that none of us wanted a taste of prison food so instead each of us brought a dish we would miss the most if we found ourselves in a prison cell. I have to tell you the absolute sweetest thing – my daughter Gabrielle {below on far left} brought chili. Y’all know how chili is my favorite food of all time and has been since I was about 8 years old. I’ve worried in the past that my kids would turn into chili-haters because I would make it all. the. time. Instead, chili was Gabrielle’s ‘would miss the most dish’ along with Red Lobster cheese biscuits. We also had fresh fruit and dip made by my oldest daughter {2nd from the left} which was inhaled before we even started on the meal. A watermelon salad, fresh-from-the-garden veggie wraps and creamed corn rounded out our meal. Of course wine and beer were a necessity – can’t have book club without the wine!
If you’ve been under a rock {like me} and have not read this one or seen the series it’s about Piper Kerman and her year in a women’s prison in Connecticut. Piper found herself out of sorts after graduating from Smith College, sought adventure and ended up immersed in drug trafficking. She quickly realized that this was not the adventure she had been seeking, blew off all of her ties, moved to San Francisco and proceeded to get on with her life. Piper eventually met Larry, they moved in together and it seemed that happily ever after was attainable. Dun, dun, dun. . . .then came the knock on the door 5 years after Piper escaped the drug business. People had been arrested, names were being thrown around and although she was a pretty blonde/blue eyed white girl from an Ivy League school that did not prevent her from being charged and convicted. For a variety of reasons, it was another 5 years before she had to surrender to the Danbury Federal Prison. Orange is the New Black takes us behind the prison bars to what life is really like in a federal prison and to Piper’s realization of the consequences of her actions as a wayward adventure-seeker.
What made me finally recognize the indifferent cruelty of my own past wasn’t the constraints put on me by the U.S. government, nor the debt I had amassed for legal fees, nor the fact that I could not be with the man I loved. It was sitting and talking and working with and knowing the people who suffered because of what people like me had done.
Although there are sections that tend to drag just a little in the book {and the series}, we all felt Orange is the New Black should be required reading for all women. Why? Yes these women are criminals and yes they should do their time but, at the minimum, basic human needs must be met. Women in prison should be safe from attack by the guards and treated with a modicum of dignity. Did you know that with Bush’s War on Drugs we now have over 800,000 women in prison for minor drug crimes. There were accounts of women in federal prison who were serving years due to conviction as a non-violent protester while a guard convicted of raping an inmate served ONE MONTH. Tell me the rationale in that.
A lengthy term of community service working with addicts on the outside world would probably have driven the same truth home and been a hell of a lot more productive for the community. But our current criminal justice system has no provision for restorative justice, in which an offender confronts the damage they have done and tries to make it right to the people they have harmed. . .Instead, our system of “corrections” is about arm’s-length revenge and retribution, all day and all night. Then its overseers wonder why people leave prison more broken than when they went in.
I could go on and on about the atrocities of our social justice system. You’re here to know if the book is good or not; not to hear my rantings about social justice. Read it folks. There’s a bit of something for everyone in it. While I’ve never been a fan of a memoir, Orange is the New Black reads like a fiction novel. Piper is conversational, a bit sarcastic at times, and a character that, while you may not feel relatable, you will at least find yourself immersed in her story. Personally, I have not seen the show. Everyone else at book club raved about it and we compared notes about similarities/differences to the book. The biggest difference we found is that in the book, Larry, the boyfriend, is uber supportive of Piper throughout the entire ordeal. In the Netflix series, Larry and Piper have a much different relationship. The questions we used came straight from Piper’s website. There’s an excerpt available on her site as well.
I’d love to know if you’ve read the book or watched the series. What’s your opinion about our social justice system – is it ok? does it need work? or a complete overhaul? Share with me in the comments your thoughts and let’s get a discussion going!