“You’ve got good taste in books, so you’re alright with me” – Poussey Washington
So, you’ve gluttonously binge-watched all of season five in a couple of sittings and now you feel like Tricia detoxing back in season one. It’s going to be a long wait until you get another Litchfield fix, so in the meantime, here are some books you can use to stave off those sweaty shakes.
Presumably you’ve already read the book the show is based on; Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black, but maybe you haven’t read this more recently-published one written by Piper’s ex, the real-life Alex Vause, in which she shares the details of her exploits before her incarceration and provides some commentary about her portrayal in both the book and the show. It’s like getting another whole Alex flashback episode!
OITNB with ghosties! This takes place at a maximum security women’s prison, so it’s a bit less…relaxed than Litchfield, but there’s a lot of overlap in its character-archetypes, even down to a Pornstache! And despite the strong supernatural component here, there’s just as much focus on the day-to-day of prison life; conflicts between inmates and guards or other inmates, backstories, contraband, hunger strikes, etc.
I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison
A follow-up to 2003’s Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, this is another collection of short essays written by inmates at Connecticut’s York Correctional Institution; a maximum security women’s prison. Like episodes of OITNB, these candid vignettes offer the opportunity to see the women as more than their criminal records; as human beings who regret their mistakes and hope for their futures.
Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian
An entertaining memoir chronicling the experiences of a young and aimless Orthodox Jew who finds himself working as a librarian in a men’s prison in Boston, encountering prisoners as charismatic, funny, profound and heartbreaking as the ladies of Litchfield, and guards as petty. There’s also a focus on the institution of prison and on prison culture and the rituals that preserve dignity and humanity behind bars.
Bitch Planet, Vol. 1: Extraordinary Machine
An ongoing comic book series (this graphic novel collects issues #1-5) set in a dystopian future in which women who are deemed “non-compliant” by the ruling patriarchy, for infractions like talking too loudly or being overweight, are sent away to a penal planet. A very funny, angry, sometimes confusing intersectional feminist satire that would be passed around Litchfield like crazy.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
A keenly penetrating and persuasive examination of how pervasive racial bias and discrimination in the American criminal justice system has led to a mass incarceration epidemic targeting black populations; individuals who, once labeled as felons, are excluded from many of the benefits and freedoms citizens enjoy. A sobering, powerful, important book if you are interested in social justice or are in any way a human.
This is a juvie version of OITNB, but it is not a YA novel. Set in Scotland at a co-ed facility run by social workers for chronic young offenders who have been through the foster system, these teens are parents and prostitutes, drug addicts, self-harmers and anorectics. Whipsmart 15-year-old Anais is the focus, but all of these furious damaged characters shine. It’s graphic and tough, but also beautiful and hopeful.
This isn’t set in a prison, but you can pretend it is an inmate backstory set just after WWII, when a prominent Barbadian woman contacts the police to confess to a crime and over the course of a single night and nearly 500 pages, reveals her own story of revenge as well as the larger story of an island long-subjected to colonialism and slavery and the resulting racial and sexual injustices endured by its people.
Very short (128 pages), but worth a read if your interest in the prison system extends beyond “a place where TV shows and movies are set.” Davis argues that prisons perpetuate society’s problems without actually addressing or seeking to abolish them; that the current justice system is racist, sexist, and classist, and that fear of punishment has never been a deterrent to crime. Food for thought. Or at least a snack.
Anne and George meet at college in the late 60’s and form one of those intense female friendships whose effects are felt long after they part ways. When the wealthy and idealistic Anne is convicted of a violent crime years later, George reflects on their relationship and the zeitgeist of their youth; activism, ethics, and revolution. Matched for ‘good girls gone bad,’ the women’s prison system, and deep female bonds.
