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Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

4.2 out of 5 stars 27 ratings

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide. Bell Chevigny, a writer herself and a former prison teacher, has selected the best of these to create Doing Time - a timely, beautiful, sometimes devastating, but vital work, which demonstrates resoundingly that prison writing is a vibrant branch of American literature.

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  1. Listening Length
    13 hours and 16 minutes
  2. Author
    Bell Gale Chevigny - editor
  3. Narrator
    Bernard Setaro Clark, see all
  4. Audible release date
    February 4, 2013
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Audible Studios
  7. ASIN
    B00BB6ZRCS
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
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Product details

Listening Length 13 hours and 16 minutes
Author Bell Gale Chevigny - editor
Narrator Bernard Setaro Clark, Shay Moore
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date February 04, 2013
Publisher Audible Studios
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B00BB6ZRCS
Best Sellers Rank #568,458 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,265 in Racism & Discrimination Studies
#3,951 in Literature Anthologies
#6,658 in African American Literature

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4.2 out of 5 stars
27 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Charlie Norman
    5.0 out of 5 stars DOING TIME: 25 Years of Prison Writing," A review
    Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Accolades are due Bell Chevigny's opening of the prison literary vaults at PEN for the world to see in DOING TIME: 25 Years of Prison Writing. As one of the original prisoner contributors, with "Pearl Got Stabbed," to the 1999 edition, I was anxious to see not only how well the writings held up against the passage of time, but also whether the works retained their relevance in the "modern" world of corrections. I needn't have been concerned.

    I'd scarcely returned with my copy of the new book to the rec yard, crowded with prisoners when an old convict spied the provocative cover art of a hand grasping steel bars, and asked, "What you got there? Can I see that?"

    Several curious men crowded around to see. Prisoners are nosy. I explained where I got the book and read some passages out loud. They were captivated. Old timers nodded in recognition of the universality of prison experiences and young prisoners, "newcocks," stood transfixed in thought. The reaction by the guards was even more revealing.

    I asked an older, experienced correctional officer for his opinion, handing him the book. In between his duties, he seemed rapt in concentration, reading. Then a younger, more gung ho "hotshot" guard, one of those who come into prison needing to prove their toughness, joined the older man, who passed him the book. Two hours later I finally got my book back.

    The younger man looked at me, shook his head, seemingly chastened, and said, "I had no idea."

    The older man said, "Wow!"

    DOING TIME is a timeless work of prison literature that should be required reading for those involved in the world of corrections, from prisoners and guards, corrections officials, legislators who pass increasingly draconian laws, lawyers and judges, to the state governors who sign the death warrants and free those souls from Hell.

    Ms. Chevigny's insightful additions to the 2011 volume, her masterful introduction and commentaries, the significance of encouraging America's prisoners to write, what their words say about our society, and what became of the fifty-one women and men chosen to represent the other 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country, provide a poignant counterpoint to the selections. We owe her a debt of gratitude.

    I am honored to have been included in such rare company.
    Charles P. Norman Wakulla C.I. Annex, Crawfordville, FL
    10 people found this helpful
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  • Fight Club
    4.0 out of 5 stars Heart stopping
    Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2003
    This compilation is an excellent example of the wasted potential that the US has sentenced to it's prisons. Within the covers of this book you will be brought to tears one moment then horrified a few moments later. You will be shown incredible human cruelty coupled with acts of caring and kindness. I was shocked at the depth of despair that these men and women experience.
    I do not mean to say that the authors of these essays and poems should all be released from the penitentiary. Many of them deserve to be there. What I am saying is that everyone should read a book like this. Especially people involved in the judicial and law enforcement communities. We should educate and give hope to the men and women in our prisons. Because, as you will read in the book, a man without hope is a man who doesn't care anymore and a man who doesn't care anymore will do anything.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • K
    5.0 out of 5 stars reading i needed
    Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    I don't love it. but it is important reading to my research. the book is put together well and shares both prose and poetry. Thank-you
    One person found this helpful
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  • William Eric Waters, aka Easy Waters
    5.0 out of 5 stars Prison Writing at its Best!
    Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2014
    Nearly two million people are doing time in American prisons. Sister Helen Prejean of Dead Man Walking fame, who writes the foreword for Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing, edited by Bell Gale Chevigny, calls them “a small country” of throwaway people. Out of this small country has come a timely and important body of literature. It is compiled in an anthology of prize-winning fiction, nonfiction and poetry from 25 years of prison-writing contests sponsored annually by the American branch of PEN, the international writers’ organization.

    One editor I know, who is shopping around an anthology of writings by prisoners to the major New York publishing houses, states that PEN’s anthology is “jejunely titled Doing Time.” Be that as it may, doing time is substantial and, as stated above, a substantial number of people – nearly two million – are doing time in American prisons. On the dust jacket award-winning poet Marie Ponsot asks, “What happens to them when they do time?”

    Prisoners simply don’t just do time. Prison time is complex and there are many ways to do time. In this, Chevigny has divided the book into eleven parts, including “Time and Its Terms,” “Routines and Ruptures,” and “Death Row.” Although politicians have been enacting lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the-key-legislation, the overwhelming majority of prisoners will be released back into society. Therefore, how they do time is important to the society to which they will return.

    Anyone on the “outside” who wants to know what goes on in the “inside” must read this book. Even if you do not want to know what is going on in the inside, you should read this book. It has much to recommend it, including high-quality fiction, which reveals moments of humor, as in the story “Dog Star Desperado,” which describes the journey from one prison to another, where prisoners, when they arrive at their new prison, are issued the dreaded jockey over boxer shorts, which prisoners call “punk panties,” which happen to be pink, as well as moments of acknowledging prisoners’ humanity, as in the story “The Tower Pig,” which Chevigny describes as “a brief venture of keeper and kept into free air; the encounter permits a slight but crucial opening, a moment of surprising recognition.”

    Many people will recognize some of the characters who people these stories and the people who tell them. They are our fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and friends. We personally know their stories; it is good to see them in print. Other people need to know them as we do, beyond the crimes they have been convicted of and the stereotypes they have been reduced to.
    Sister Prejean warns the reader to watch for the self-serving subtext. This is not a major problem anymore than it is with any other writer, say a Monica Lewinsky, whose book is not only self-serving but tasteless. Indeed, the main problem I see with the book is that people might not read it. Prison writing is hard to categorize; thus, it is seemingly hard for publishers to market.

    The author Fielding Dawson, who served as the Chair of PEN’s Prison Writing Committee, writes, “there is a prison writing genre.” This writer believes that prison writing picks up where writers of true crime and crime fiction, including the legal thriller, left off. It answers Ponsot’s question, “What happens to prisoners when they do time?” People in prison dream, fight, love, hate, think of revenge, seek redemption and meaning in their lives, and some find the courage, the imagination or the inspiration to write about these things. Now, all they need is an audience.

    The editor I mentioned earlier who is shopping around an anthology of writings by prisoners has been turned down by 23 publishers. The strange thing is that in a number of “personal” rejection letters he has received from major publishers they state the following about the work: “fascinating,” “worthy and interesting,” “important and intelligent,” and “tremendously powerful.” If this yet to be published book is all of the above, then why are publishers unwilling to publish it? They seem to be unaware that there is a market for prison writing. This PEN anthology should be the catalyst for publishers to open their doors to writings by prisoners. These writers have been locked up, most, perhaps deservedly. They should not be punished further by not publishing their writings.

    [1999]
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on September 6, 2017
    Gave it to my son. It helped him to survive while doing time.
    One person found this helpful
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