2011: Book 37

Daughter's Keeper by Ayelet Waldman

352 pages

Completed 4/19/11

Waldman's writing style's fluidity makes for great reading. This novel, about a young woman caught up in a tumultuous relationship with her mother and step-father, in a federal drug case with her illegal alien boyfriend, and pregnant with an unwanted child, takes the reader on a journey from the naivety of childhood through a prison sentence.

Nailing the daughter's condescending attitude without making her unlikable, Waldman's character development is that which makes you forget whether you are reading a work of fiction or a memoir.

2011: Book 17

Couldn't Keep it to Myself: Testimonies From Our Imprisoned Sisters by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution


368 pages

Completed 2/25/11

I am a huge Wally Lamb fan; She's Come Undone and The Hour I First Believed are two of my favorites. After reading Lamb's I'll Fly Away a few years ago, I realized I had missed the first of the York prison stories in this compilation.

A collection of autobiographical and fictional stories from women in prison for various offenses - assault, homicide, manslaughter - the writing workshops run by Lamb in this Connecticut prison allowed these women to have a voice - most for the first time. With an underlying theme of abuse and sexual assault, these women's stories do not ask for pity or deny their crimes. Instead they are forced to confront the scariest thing - themselves. Some are joyful stories; most are horrific.

The voices that these women are able to express only through writing is indescribable; Lamb has offered them a way for their souls to be free, if only for a brief time. As the final line in the book by Dale Griffith, a writing teacher at York, so wonderfully puts: "My body's still in prison, but my spirit's finally free."

2011: Book #1

What Happened to Johnnie Jordan: The Story of a Child Turning Violent by Jennifer Toth 

320 pages

Completed 1/2/11

In 1996, fourteen year-old Johnnie Jordan randomly bludgeons his elderly foster mother to death and flees. Toth's book tries to conclude why Johnnie did such a thing by tying together his tumultuous childhood, his experience in the foster care system, the kindness shown to him by the woman whom he murdered, and the subsequent life of Johnnie behind bars.

Written in a sort of disjointed way that I didn't particularly care for, this book was nothing but informative, if not disturbing. A must-read for those considering work in child psychology or social work, I think that "What Happened..." is a wonderful glimpse into the brokenness that exists in young - and the elder - Johnnie Jordan.