Customer Reviews

Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I think some of the negative reviews posted here stem from the fact that this memoir is so achingly honest that it makes some people uncomfortable when they imagine themselves in Kinsella's position and they lash out at her to push away the pain she's dealing with in this beautifully written and uncompromising memoir.

I'm not a soft touch with books (movies can often make me cry, but books rarely do), but i was teary-eyed reading Kinsella's memoir. The penultimate chapter, MOTHER'S DAY, is particularly moving and sensitively observed as that deals with the Get on the Bus program that brings children into prisons on Mother's Day weekend to visit their incarcerated mothers. This is a real heart-breaker with sobering facts sprinkled throughout ("According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, as of 2000, 1.5 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent. That same study show that women are being imprisoned at a much more rapid rate than men; in the 1990s female prisoners rose by 106 percent and male prisoners by 58 percent.").

I'm also a slow reader but this book moved around with me from the moment I picked it up: it was with me on the subway, in the bathroom and by my computer at home. As it got closer to the end, I was reading it almost like a novel, wondering just how was this story going to end. Not once did i feel myself losing interest or wishing that Kinsella had done anything different (meaning I never found myself thinking, "Just get on with it" or "go back to..."). VISITING LIFE was a riveting read; very affecting and one that you'll want to discuss with friends.

This is an inspirational title that upturns many pre-conceptions from readers (especially the notion of how any woman could enter into a--even platonic--relationship with a man in prison). Kinsella's portraits of many of the other women visiting men in the same prison are haunting, sympathetic and initially as suspicious as most readers would be.

This is a story about Kinsella's process for healing old wounds that haunted her for years and hindered her ability to trust and to make herself vulnerable by making herself available for a new relationship. Impatient readers who anonymously tell her to "just get on with it" seem to miss the whole point of the book. She wasn't able to get on with her life and it wasn't until she found the perfect combination of a "safe" man (behind bars) who was also open to doing what he could to help her heal, that she was able to come out the other side.

This is an amazing achievement.

Kinsella sheds light on a world many people have probably never considered: women who love men in prison. And she does it in such a way that is never patronizing or scandalous. I love how she juxtaposes the stories of the other women with the very honest account of how she herself fell in love with a convicted murder who was serving a life sentence without parole. This is a beautiful book; journalistic but personal, sad but hopeful.

I wasn't sure just what to expect when I started reading this book, but I'd been intrigued by the press mentions. Once I got started on a sunny Sunday afternoon I read the entire thing straight through! This author opens up a world I'm not likely ever to see from my little suburban perch, and I was really moved by the stories of the other women that she met. And as for her story, I can totally understand her feelings. It is easy to feel like a complete stranger in our society if you don't fit into the married-with-kids mold that is all around us. Bless her for finding a way to work through her own feelings, and for being brave enough to share them.

Jennifer Sander

I finished this book with a lot of unanswered questions about Rory. Did Bridget ever help him get anything published? Was he really as good a writer as she claimed he was? What were the specific facts (independent of Rory or Bridget's "spin") of his case? In large part he seemed to be a blank screen where Bridget could project what she longed for in a man. I finished some chapters, thinking, "enough about you already." I couldn't relate to her prolonged agony over her divorce and her angst over being childless at 40.

She is hardly typical of most women who visit prisoners, because most women can't tack on an extra flight to accomodate a prison visit during a work-related business trip. Most women also don't have the luxury of careers that allow them the freedom to move around the country as the wanderlust strikes them and still keep the same job.

Still, it was an interesting book. I wish she could have gotten more women to talk to her and tell their stories, it would have made a better book.

There should be more books written on this subject. I too can relate to this story being married for 25 year to a man that is incarcerated. As the author stated, being lonely, but also being able to encourage and help other women and families in the same situation. So many people don't want to hear about the subject of loving someone inside walls of broken dreams. This book will give insight and open eyes and hearts to many others that are in the same situation. God Bless...

Dutchess Taylor, Author of: The Devil's Playground and Redemption & Deliverance

Bridget offers us a different, much more intimate view compared to what has been written on this subject in the past. She interviews women who have husbands or boyfriends in prison for committing murder, but she does so in a more personal way, for as is the point of the whole book, she herself is one of them. Unlike other inmates who swear they were innocent, the man she cares for fully admits his guilt and accepts his punishment. An educated, perceptive writer who puts her deepest emotions out there for the world to see, Kinsella is the first to admit that nearly all of these women, herself included, are seeking a kind of deliverance from their own wounded lives. And while the men they find romance with have "nothing more to lose," some of those prisoners also offer a much-needed understanding of the pain they share, borne of isolation and despair. In Kinsella's case, that empathy enables her to achieve closure and embark upon a life of renewal.

I was interested in this novel after hearing Bridget Kinsella on NPR. I found her to be intelligent and candid about her experience falling in love with a prison inmate. Her novel didn't disapoint...she explores her own situation and the experiences of the other women she meets with such honesty. I felt like I really had a glimpse into her mindset and how this unlikely union actually made sense for her.
However, some of the book reads on like someone telling you every detail of a dream they just had. I think that Kinsella used her book as a vehicle for her own healing, and perhaps as such, she included a little too much backstory.

The author has shared her innermost soul to the reader in this personal and open story of love being found in a most unusual place. This is an honest portrayal of many wives and girlfriends being held captive along with their loved ones in the penal system. My heart still wrenches when I recall the story even several weeks after reading. This is unusual because after I read a book, I am usually ready to go on to the next one. I am still so "lost" in this story, I have yet to "move on".Thank you to this awesome and talented writer.You tell a story that is shared by so many more than most people realize.

Kinsella's willingness to tell this story is admirable -- she's not the kind of woman who thought she'd ever have a relationship with a murderer housed in the supermax prison of Pelican Bay, yet that's exactly where she found herself. An inspiring memoir about what love can do, how it can help us realize our true potential, even when comes it from the most unexpected sources, as it did in Kinsella's case. A rare valentine of a book.

I gave this book to a writer friend of mine and said "read this because it's an example of what not to write." I read "Visiting Life" while visiting old friends. I would groan and read sentences out loud. "How did this book ever get published?" I would ask but then I answered my own question, "Because Ms. Kinsella has connections to the publishing industry."

I couldn't wait to get to the States and buy this book - I have a "friend" in prison and I've been curious about his life and about women who have husbands or boyfriends in prison. But this book was not about women who spend their weekends in prison visiting rooms; it was about how a wonderful, beautiful, talented, sparkling woman could - GASP! - get involved with a prisoner. The chapters on the women Ms. Kinsella meets at Pelican Bay seemed to be thrown in because that is what she promised the publisher the book would be about...token chapters about token women.

I actually felt sorry for Rory, murderer that he was, because he was so used by Ms. Kinsella. He was her ego-boost (as though she needed one), her sounding board, her shoulder to cry on. She's such a spoiled brat, I would think, as I read her accounts of visiting Rory and his subsequent letters to her, offering her encouragement when his situation seemed quite a bit more dire than hers. After all, she had a loving family and co-workers who bought her presents like cocktail dresses. Whereas Rory had nothing but his infatuation with this self-centered woman.

In the end, Ms. Kinsella is given an "out" of the relationship, should she need one. I won't divulge what that is but suffice it to say, she can walk away from Rory with a clean conscience. Lucky her. Not so for Rory. Or for women who make true commitments to the people they love.