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    Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
    Unavailable
    Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
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    Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison
    Audiobook11 hours

    Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

    Written by Piper Kerman

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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 ago. 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 women 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, where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated. 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, Orange Is the New Black 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Audio
    Release dateJun 11, 2012
    ISBN9781452677668
    Unavailable
    Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison

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    Reviews for Orange Is the New Black

    3.5/5

    1,243 ratings163 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A surprisingly enjoyable read that has been on my TBR shelf for forever! Piper is accused and sentenced to prison based on a 10 year old crime. The memoir serves as an account of her time in a minimum security federal prison.

      What's remarkable, throughout her experience, are the people she meets and connects with during her stay. It seems as if she was truly able to take a horrific experience and put a mostly positive spin on it all (the only exceptions, of course, being a frustration with the system when it came to furloughs or to transfers for court appearances).

      The part of the book that really hit home for ME was the frustration in our system and Piper seemed equally upset - where is the support for these people, the computers, the trainings, the help to get them to adjust to time outside prison? It's no wonder we have so many repeat offenders when we have done nothing to assist them in being successful beyond the barbed wire walls...

      Definitely a worthwhile read!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This memoir of Kerman's year in prison was very interesting. I enjoyed seeing the inside of the system from her perspective. I think the fact that she, along with so many of the people we meet in her book, was imprisoned at all is ludicrous. Kerman was luckier than most, she had access to good lawyers and had a tremendous support system outside - both of which she admits upfront.

      The last few chapters were the most poignant, I think, as Kerman is forced to confront some of her demons in the flesh.

      Well-written and absorbing.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      I found myself much more interested in the stories the author tells about other inmates and explanations about prison activities than in the author herself. I get it--you ran a lot. You liked to do yoga. What I actually cared about were the relationships she built with fellow inmates and then I was left completely unsatisfied at the end. THAT is what mattered to me--putting faces, names, and stories with people in the prison system. I am very glad that Kerman went over the dismal state of reentry programs and the fear and anxiety that surround release. However, I wanted/want to know if Kerman maintains a relationship with any people with whom she served time. I would've been exponentially happier if the book ended with an epilogue in which the author updates us on some or all of the friendships she intentionally or unintentionally cultivated during her prison term.

      Though I've never been in prison, I've lived and worked with the same people for yearlong spans. Spending 24 hours a day with a group of people, especially in trying conditions (emotionally and in terms of living conditions) bonds you in a way that is extremely hard to explain but means a great deal. You might hate someone for doing something one day but you have to get over it if you want to live and work together the next day--and you have to...you have no choice. In that regard, I was satisfied with the amount of personal growth the author went through in her time at Danbury and in her other prison experiences that year. She kept all the contact information for her friends--I hope she is visiting those still in prison, writing letters, and maintaining contact with those on the outside. Those types of bonds mean so much. Even if you are apart, you still have a near endless supply of shared memories.

      I am excited to talk to my friend and her boyfriend about this book, as they are both COs in a federal prison. It was interesting to hear stories from the "other side," and I found it fascinating. I'm happy we picked this for book club and I'm excited to hear what everyone else thinks!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Absolutely fascinating. I don't ever plan to go to prison, but if I did, perhaps Danbury wouldn't be the worst place to end up.Piper commits a crime while young and (kind of) stupid. Years later, she's indicted, pleads, and is sentenced to 15 months in prison. Not as scary and horrible as I thought, although I am sure that it was awful. The amount of empathy and kinship the women shared was amazing (most of the time). Just extraordinary.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      a very "me me me-moir" (I just coined that phrase!); author is annoying; not worth the read

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      This is the story of Piper Kerman who was sentanced to 15 months in a women's prison for drug charges. This is entertaining and gives an enlightening look into the women's prison system as well as the drug industry.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      In 1993, Piper Kerman was 24 years old, well-educated, privileged, rebellious, and bored. Also very, very stupid. She got involved with someone glamorous and exciting, and when it turned out that the glamor and excitement were fueled by a job smuggling drugs, she didn't particularly care. Eventually she was asked to help out by escorting a suitcase full of drug money on an international flight and, like an idiot, she agreed. Five years later, when she'd long since turned her back on that life, she was finally arrested for the crime. Due to some weird circumstances involving extradition issues with the drug kingpin she was indirectly working for, she didn't serve her prison time for it until eleven years after the fact, when she did thirteen months in a minimum-security women's prison in Connecticut. This memoir is about her experiences "on the inside. Kerman offers us a very different perspective on prison life than the depictions you usually see on the news, or in television and movies. It's not a violent story, or a sensational one. She's not trying to impress us with how tough she is or make us feel sorry for her. Mostly, it's about the ordinary experiences of life in prison, about staying sane as you do your time, and, most especially, about the surprisingly close and supportive relationships that develop between prisoners. It's also a quiet condemnation of aspects of the US criminal justice system. Kerman never gets up on a soapbox and rants, but she does make it clear how ill-served many of these women are by the system, which does little except teach people how to live as prisoners. Overall, it's an interesting and rather eye-opening read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      This book was remarkably enjoyable to read. The writing is light and breezy, and it’s very well written, though not beautifully written; it’s a very straightforward account.Even though the author was so much more privileged than a typical women inmate, I got a good feel for not only her experiences but those of the even more unfortunate inmates.I learned a lot about life on the inside. One main thing is if you’re a nice person and you treat others well and you’re open to relationships with others, you will find community anywhere. I was very touched so many times.The American prison system is so absurd. This author did not belong in prison. The situation is almost laughable. Give people such as her many hours of community service. Well, she got a book out of it. But for the many other women who also pose no real threat to society who are written about in this book, there are other, better options. The number of people is prison is ridiculous, as is the percentage of Americans who’ve been incarcerated.Humans are humans everywhere so it did not surprise me to see all the personality types, lifestyles, ways of coping, etc. match life outside to that of people in the prison, not to mention the various insane ways of doing or not doing things. Absurd rules and situations abounded.I’d forgotten that Martha Stewart did not get her wish to be in Danbury so I kept wondering if she’d show up.One thing I found most amazing/disgusting is how laundry detergent is dispensed to Danbury women’s camp inmates for free, and menstrual supplies are present in abundance, enough so that they’re multiuse, but everything else, including soap, toothpaste, and other such things have to be bought in the commissary, with either prison earnings (for many women) or money sent from the outside.Also, the amount it costs to keep each prisoner incarcerated is ridiculous. For most violent offenders and a few others, that’s where they need to be. For all others, there are many other better options, for treatment/rehabilitation and/or punishment.I would not survive, I don’t think. But I love seeing (in all the prison books I’ve read) how the new normal of being incarnated simply becomes people’s new lifestyles, and full lives are lived by the majority of prisoners. They might not be as satisfying and are certainly more restricted than most, but people adapt beautifully, for the most part.The author is atypical, though not unique, re her level of education, her high socioeconomic status, her tremousdous amount of support from her fiancée and family and friends, having a love of reading and books, and having many, many books sent to her, having a tremendous amount of support from the outside, and having a relatively short sentence. She acknowledges all this, and makes clear she’s luckier than most. If she hadn’t continually professed these facts, I’d have had an incredibly hard time reading this book. But I appreciated the author’s honesty about herself and I was touched when she came to see the harm she did to others when she committed her crime, and because she was giving and has empathy for others and made the best of her situation, she comes across to me as very likeable, even though in the outside world I don’t think she’s “my kind” of person.Some thoughts as I read: We must do away with these silly mandatory federal minimum sentences. It’s ridiculous to be incarcerated for a this kind of crime committed a decade earlier and when the person self-surrenders. What a waste, for everybody. There is a shockingly poor standard of living but not as bad as for some not in prison, and the women definitely tweaked the system. No psychiatric care and awful medical care, and the vast majority of the women get released so unprepared to succeed. Lousy food. At one point when I was an omnivore I might have survived. They did have (inedible) tvp for the vegetarians and a sort of salad bar. I think in minimum security women’s prisons more of the staff should be women, and the men should be better screened!! Absurd minimum wage, given that inmates have to buy their own basic items, especially for those without a diploma/GED, 14¢ an hour, and the commissary prices are extremely inflated.The account has funny parts galore, due to the ludicrousness of the situations of those connected to "the camp" in Danbury.The last chapter, titled It Can Always Get Worse, and other parts, especially parts at the end and beginning, really touched me.Very readable and interesting and hard to put down.Our system needs a big overhaul in my opinion.4 ½ stars
    • 4/5
      Really well written. Funny and poignant and real. I wanted to read this because I liked the netflix series, and I'm glad I read it even though the show is vastly different from the book.
    • 3/5
      It is interesting having read the book after four seasons of the Netflix show bearing the same title. Most of the characters have different names in the book and the TV show, which at first really upset me. I just don't feel like some of the names Piper chose fit her characters- which is probably why the show creators changed them. Additionally, I did not feel like the book told a dynamic story of life in prison. I felt like it was one (privileged) woman lamenting about her experience. One thing the television show does very well is highlight current issues with the prison system, which I think Piper tried to do, but failed. I think I would recommend this book to others, particularly those that have watched the show, because it is an interesting look at prison life.
    • 4/5
      A quick read that is both comical and enlightening.
    • 4/5
      Orange Is the New Black is an inspiring and realistic view of the federal prison system. Kerman's observations during her time in prison really enlighten readers, helping those who have been fortunate enough to never have come in contact with the corrections system to understand the reality of being an inmate. This book is well-written and introspective, and it adequately highlights many of the biggest problems with the American prison system. This is one I can recommend to a wide array of people.
    • 4/5
      Prison is kind of a fascinating, unique environment/ culture and this is an insider perspective that we don't generally get. Piper Kerman's actual experiences aren't quite as fun as the show, primarily because she doesn't have the full backstory on all the characters, but Piper herself is much more interesting in the book than the show. It was a fun read and a good compliment to the show.
    • 4/5
      Surprisingly solid read with wry humor buried deep inside an unfiltered look at one woman's prison experience.

      I'm a fan of the Netflix show, so it was fascinating to see where they changed things and how. It goes far beyond dramatic license to say this book is far more serious than the show it spawned.

      Worth the read, to be sure.
    • 4/5
      This book was a great read. The detail about the chain of commands in a women's prison is very informative. I loved reading about the friendships that were formed by the women who had different social standards. I haven't seen any episodes of the t.v. series but this book definitely gave me an idea of the setting and situation. I loved it.
    • 5/5
      Compelling account of a year in a women's Federal Prison.
    • 4/5
      This was a fascinating look inside a women's prison. I started off thinking Piper Kerman was an idiot, an ignorant, self-centered fool. I'm not sure she would disagree with that assessment. When it caught up with her, 10 years after she had gotten her act together, it was a very rude shock, as you might expect. She learned to live in prison, and to make friends who weren't at all like her, and finally, to realize, through these new friends, the enormous human cost of the drug-smuggling and money-laundering she had so blithely undertaken.I was a bit disappointed in the ending where she just rode off into the sunset with her fiance, but that's really the worst thing I can say about this book.
    • 4/5
      This is a complicated book to describe. On a factual level, it's about a Smith grad who smuggles drug money into Chicago and ends up in federal prison 10 years later. But it's also harrowing, compelling, and inspiring by turns. Piper Kerman writes with such vivid detail that it feels as if you're in jail with her...an uncomfortable and eye-opening sensation.
    • 4/5
      The story of a middle class college grad who winds up doing time in a minimum security women's prison. A story of survival, strength and friendship. An insightful look into the criminal justice system.
    • 4/5
      It's 1992 and Piper Kerman, a recent graduate of Smith College, is looking for life on the edge. She becomes the lesbian companion to a drug smuggler named Nora, and travels the world first class buying the trappings of the life that she's come to enjoy. She's not involved in the actual drug trade until a year later when Nora tells her that she has to carry a suitcase of drug money to Brussells. Things seem to be going south and Piper is getting tired of the anxiety that this life produces. She leaves Nora after the Brussells trip and gets an apartment with a friend in San Francisco. She soon becomes friends with a man named Larry and eventually leaves the lesbian lifestyle behind. Time passes and she adjusts to normal life again, working at a good job, living with Larry, hanging with good friends. Five years after the Brussels courier job two U.S. Customs officers show up at her door with a federal indictment charging her with drug smuggling and money laundering. It will be another five years before the trial and her sentence. This book is an account of her life and the lives of other women in the U.S. Federal prison camp in Danbury, Connecticut. It's an open, honest memoir (just a warning about the language) and a book that I couldn't put down. I definitely recommend it.
    • 3/5
      I loved the stories the author told about prison life and the other prisoners. I hated all the parts where she talked about herself. How many times should you be referencing your silky blonde hair and shapely body? And that you got special treatment because the prison officials thought you were classy? Do we need to know that all the other prisoners thought you were hot? Plus, she kept pointing out that she would never be racist, but everyone else in prison was.I wanted to shake her "slender shoulders" and say "Boo hoo. Prison isn't supposed to be fun. That's why it's called prison. If you don't like it, don't smuggle drugs into the country."She was also very bitter about the way the staff treated her. I have numerous relatives who work in prisons. They can't really be nice to people. Obviously the "horse cock" incident was over-the-top, but for the most part prison employees are just doing their jobs. They are there to maintain order, not host a party or make prison more pleasant for people who committed crimes.So there were definitely parts of the book I enjoyed reading, but I don't see myself wanting to hang out with Piper at a party.
    • 4/5
      In the mid-2000's, Piper Kerman was sentenced to 15 months in a women's federal prison. It must have been the longest 15 months on record. Orange is the New Black is her crowded but moving memoir of the women she got to know at Danbury, and her experiences within the federal prison system. It does go on a bit long, and is crammed with descriptions of everyone she met during her prison time, so much so that it becomes hard for the reader to remember who's who. Definitely worth reading, however.
    • 4/5
      I was thrilled to get this book through LibraryThing early reviewers, and even more excited when I started reading it. Piper's story of winding up in jail on a ten year old drug charge walked the line perfectly between chatty memoir and its meaty themes. Her exploration of the social injustices of prison and mandatory sentencing really made me think, while parts of the book made me laugh and wish to take Piper out for a drink. I flew through this book and was sad when it was over. If you like memoirs, this is a great one. Probably no good for people who are looking for hard facts and statistics about prison life.
    • 5/5
      What happens when you have to pay the consequences for a crime years later? In her youth, Piper Kerman allowed herself to become a minor part of a drug smuggling ring led by her former lover. Years later, she is established in New York City with a fiance and a career when her past comes calling. Piper waits years as her case winds around the court system, but ultimately has to spend a year in a women's white collar prison. Piper writes about how she survived that year and allowed the experience to change her forever. I loved this book! Piper decribes what it was like to enter a foreign environment and learn how to survive. In addition, she shines a light on the absurdities and heartbreak of the prison system. No one who reads this story can fail to realize the urgent need for prison reform.This book stayed in my head for weeks after I read it. Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Piper Kerman is young, reckless, and lovelorn as a young Smith College grad when she allows her lover to pressure her into smuggling drug money. Soon after her one nerve-wracking foray into crime, she leaves her lover and returns to normal life in the U.S. desperate to forget her one indiscretion. Years on, living in New York with her soon-to-be fiance and earning a living as a freelance producer, Kerman is surprised and distraught when her past catches up with her in the form of two customs officers and a court date in Chicago, where she is charged with drug smuggling and money laundering. With the War on Drugs in full swing, making mandatory minimum sentences for any and all drug crimes regardless of circumstances at least ten years, Piper's best option is to plea guilty to her crime and hope for a much more lenient sentence. When all is said and done, Kerman finds herself reporting to Danbury, Connecticut for a year in minimum security women's prison.What follows is Kerman's compelling, all-too-human story that uses her unique situation to lay bare the broken prison system and its often unexpectedly sympathetic captives. Within the pages, Kerman brings to light the awful feeling of exposure and powerlessness that come with a prison sentence. Despite being in a relatively low security portion of the prison system for a relatively short stretch of time, Kerman is struck by the humiliating rituals of the prison and her sudden downgrading to something less than human immediately upon her arrival within prison walls.While Kerman doesn't excuse the crimes of the women she gets to know and even love within the prison walls, she does much to humanize and create sympathy for a subset of society struggling within the system. For many of the women she meets, making money in the underground economy is the only way of making any money at all, and the prison system does very little to help them succeed in a crime free life on the outside. As much as these women look forward to freedom, a feeling of trepidation lurks as they stumble through "exit" classes that do laughably little to address the practical aspects of living and working in a world that has continued to change in their absence. Kerman notes that the teachers of the classes, while occasionally well-meaning, could hardly propose a way of even finding an apartment in which to live upon release.Orange is the New Black is at once profoundly revealing and effortlessly entertaining. Kerman has a vivid, honest voice that doesn't drift into self-pity but instead keenly observes the people around her both good and bad. She paints compelling and empathetic portraits of the prisoners that shared her life and made her time within the prison system bearable. At the same time, though, she shines a light on the dark corners of a life behind bars that most of us hope never to experience. Orange is the New Black is just the sort of book that people really do need to read, and it's just our luck that Kerman's book is nearly as entertaining as it is important.
    • 5/5
      This book was so inspiring to read, and thank you Piper for writing about your experience. I felt your honesty, and your journey.
    • 5/5
      Orange is the New Black is a very scary book because it clearly shows how inadequate our prison system is. This woman survived her ordeal because she had everything in the outside world working for her. Her fellow inmates did not have her advantages. The reality of this memoir is heartbreaking. One can only come to the conclusion that the system is absurd. This is a well written, deeply disturbing book that cries out for social change at all levels. An engrossing story highly reccommended for all who care about the human condition.
    • 5/5
      This autobiographical account of an ivy-league graduate's 15 month incarceration in a federal prison is a page-turning exploration into how an average upper-middle class woman might experience prison. Piper Kerman was working in a professional job and engaged to her boyfriend when federal agents came to her door to announce that she was being indicted on a crime she had committed 11 years previously. After several more years of legal delays, she was eventually incarcerated for drug smuggling, an act she had reluctantly committed for a lover who was entrenched in an international drug smuggling ring. Piper's situation came as quite a shock to her family and friends who never suspected that she would have been involved in the underworld of smuggling. Piper's account of her incarceration is well-written and hard to predict, as many characters move in and out of Piper's life. Despite Piper's intentions to not make friends with anyone, she eventually learns that she has more in common with the incarcerated women than she had previously expected. I found Piper's story interesting, sad, funny, and enlightening. She captured the personalities of the other inmates in a respectful manner and challenged the concept of incarceration as an inhumane and pointless exercise that leaves the felons "more broken than before they went in" while at the same time taking full responsibility for her actions. Piper noted that the vast majority of women incarcerated lacked the legal and familial resources that she possessed and would eventually be dumped back out on the street without any supports and broken by years of institutionalization. I cheered for Piper and felt I could relate to her as she was a real, endearing character. This is a great book and recommended for anyone who has ever pondered how they would survive a prison experience. Though it is an autobiographical account, it read more like a fiction story and had me enraptured until the last page.
    • 3/5
      This book begins brilliantly; I was absolutely fascinated.Unfortunately, after the author gets to prison the text becomes somewhat mundane, and I just didn't care about her and her problems. I imagine that day-to-day life in prison is exactly this: dealing with awful food, learning how to cope with so many people in such a curious existence (and did we really need to know time and again what race everyone was?), uncaring staff - and not the dramatic, emotional scenes that we, who have never been there, imagine. At first it's curious - here is a woman you could never imagine in a place like this: how on earth will she cope? But she learns quickly to do just that, and so the reading really isn't that interesting after awhile.Kerman makes frequent use of cliches, which drove me crazy, but she definitely can write. I think she would do better with a different subject.
    • 4/5
      An earlier review said , "This isn't an exciting prison memoir. There are no knifings, no lesbian rapes, no gangs, no killings. The most traumatic thing that happens to Piper is her boss making a comment about horse genitalia. I also grew a bit weary of everyone's race being identified. I get that prisoners divide themselves into racial groups, but I didn't find it necessary to identify everyone's nationality on every page. At times, I felt the author was stereotyping." Kerman's lack of over-dramatizing her prison experience is exactly what makes this such a great book. As a former BOP Psychologist, I was curious and cautious about how Kerman would describe her experience. While I often cringed at what appeared to be her automatic dislike of all staff, I am fully aware that most inmates suffer the brunt of staff's daily frustrations and are occassionally subjected to some terrible situations caused at the hands of sadistic individuals who never should have been hired in the first place. However, Kerman presented a very real view of prison-mainly boring on most days, with a bit of random excitment thrown in, all while dealing with a constant internal struggle over a loss of freedoms. The most amazing and raw thing about the book is Kerman's focus on her relationships and how important they are to healing any type of wound. I admire Kerman for her ability to learn and grow from her experience and her attempt at portraying prisons differently than Oz or most other dramatic media. She proved there is a way to highlight a need for change without calling pity upon herself and other inmates-a much more mature way of presenting the issue.