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Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison Paperback – March 8, 2011

by Piper Kerman (Author)

4.2 20,187 ratings

See all formats and editions

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

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 before. 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 people 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. 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, Kerman’s story 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.

Praise for Orange Is the New Black

“Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can’t unbind.”—People (four stars)

“I loved this book. It’s a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.”—Los Angeles Times

“Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”—USA Today

“It’s a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one—both for the reader and for Kerman.”—Newsweek

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Fascinating . . . The true subject of this unforgettable book is female bonding and the ties that even bars can’t unbind.”—People (four stars)

“I loved this book. It’s a story rich with humor, pathos, and redemption. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. I will never forget it.”—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

“This book is impossible to put down because [Kerman] could be you. Or your best friend. Or your daughter.”—Los Angeles Times

“Moving . . . transcends the memoir genre’s usual self-centeredness to explore how human beings can always surprise you.”—USA Today

“It’s a compelling awakening, and a harrowing one—both for the reader and for Kerman.”—Newsweek

About the Author

Piper Kerman is vice president of a Washington, D.C.–based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in Brooklyn.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

Are You Gonna Go My Way?

International baggage claim in the Brussels airport was large and airy, with multiple carousels circling endlessly. I scurried from one to another, desperately trying to find my black suitcase. Because it was stuffed with drug money, I was more concerned than one might normally be about lost luggage.

I was twenty-three in 1993 and probably looked like just another anxious young professional woman. My Doc Martens had been jettisoned in favor of beautiful handmade black suede heels. I wore black silk pants and a beige jacket, a typical jeune fille, not a bit counterculture, unless you spotted the tattoo on my neck. I had done exactly as I had been instructed, checking my bag in Chicago through Paris, where I had to switch planes to take a short flight to Brussels.

When I arrived in Belgium, I looked for my black rollie at the baggage claim. It was nowhere to be seen. Fighting a rushing tide of panic, I asked in my mangled high school French what had become of my suitcase. “Bags don’t make it onto the right flight sometimes,” said the big lug working in baggage handling. “Wait for the next shuttle from Paris—it’s probably on that plane.”

Had my bag been detected? I knew that carrying more than $10,000 undeclared was illegal, let alone carrying it for a West African drug lord. Were the authorities closing in on me? Maybe I should try to get through customs and run? Or perhaps the bag really was just delayed, and I would be abandoning a large sum of money that belonged to someone who could probably have me killed with a simple phone call. I decided that the latter choice was slightly more terrifying. So I waited.

The next flight from Paris finally arrived. I sidled over to my new “friend” in baggage handling, who was sorting things out. It is hard to flirt when you’re frightened. I spotted the suitcase. “Mon bag!” I exclaimed in ecstasy, seizing the Tumi. I thanked him effusively, waving with giddy affection as I sailed through one of the unmanned doors into the terminal, where I spotted my friend Billy waiting for me. I had inadvertently skipped customs.

“I was worried. What happened?” Billy asked.

“Get me into a cab!” I hissed.

I didn’t breathe until we had pulled away from the airport and were halfway across Brussels.

My graduation processional at Smith College the year before was on a perfect New England spring day. In the sun-dappled quad, bagpipes whined and Texas governor Ann Richards exhorted my classmates and me to get out there and show the world what kind of women we were. My family was proud and beaming as I took my degree. My freshly separated parents were on their best behavior, my stately southern grandparents pleased to see their oldest grandchild wearing a mortarboard and surrounded by WASPs and ivy, my little brother bored out of his mind. My more organized and goal-oriented classmates set off for their graduate school programs or entry-level jobs at nonprofits, or they moved back home—not uncommon during the depths of the first Bush recession.

I, on the other hand, stayed on in Northampton, Massachusetts. I had majored in theater, much to the skepticism of my father and grandfather. I came from a family that prized education. We were a clan of doctors and lawyers and teachers, with the odd nurse, poet, or judge thrown into the mix. After four years of study I still felt like a dilettante, underqualified and unmotivated for a life in the theater, but neither did I have an alternate plan, for academic studies, a meaningful career, or the great default—law school.

I wasn’t lazy. I had always worked hard through my college jobs in restaurants, bars, and nightclubs, winning the affection of my bosses and coworkers via sweat, humor, and a willingness to work doubles. Those jobs and those people were more my speed than many of the people I had met at college. I was glad that I had chosen Smith, a college full of smart and dynamic women. But I was finished with what was required of me by birth and background. I had chafed within the safe confines of Smith, graduating by a narrow margin, and I longed to experience, experiment, investigate. It was time for me to live my own life.

I was a well-educated young lady from Boston with a thirst for bohemian counterculture and no clear plan. But I had no idea what to do with all my pent-up longing for adventure, or how to make my eagerness to take risks productive. No scientific or analytical bent was evident in my thinking—what I valued was artistry and effort and emotion. I got an apartment with a fellow theater grad and her nutty artist girlfriend, and a job waiting tables at a microbrewery. I bonded with fellow waitrons, bartenders, and musicians, all equally nubile and constantly clad in black. We worked, we threw parties, we went skinny-dipping or sledding, we fucked, sometimes we fell in love. We got tattoos.

I enjoyed everything Northampton and the surrounding Pioneer Valley had to offer. I ran for miles and miles on country lanes, learned how to carry a dozen pints of beer up steep stairs, indulged in numerous romantic peccadilloes with appetizing girls and boys, and journeyed to Provincetown for midweek beach excursions on my days off throughout the summer and fall.

When winter set in, I began to grow uneasy. My friends from school told me about their jobs and their lives in New York, Washington, and San Francisco, and I wondered what the hell I was doing. I knew I wasn’t going back to Boston. I loved my family, but the fallout of my parents’ divorce was something I wanted to avoid completely. In retrospect a EuroRail ticket or volunteering in Bangladesh would have been brilliant choices, but I stayed stuck in the Valley.
Among our loose social circle was a clique of impossibly stylish and cool lesbians in their mid-thirties. These worldly and sophisticated older women made me feel uncharacteristically shy, but when several of them moved in next door to my apartment, we became friends. Among them was a raspy-voiced midwesterner named Nora Jansen who had a mop of curly sandy-brown hair. Nora was short and looked a bit like a French bulldog, or maybe a white Eartha Kitt. Everything about her was droll—her drawling, wisecracking husky voice, the way she cocked her head to look at you with bright brown eyes from under her mop, even the way she held her ever-present cigarette, wrist flexed and ready for gesture. She had a playful, watchful way of drawing a person out, and when she paid you attention, it felt as if she were about to let you in on a private joke. Nora was the only one of that group of older women who paid any attention to me. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but in Northampton, to a twenty-two-year-old looking for adventure, she was a figure of intrigue.

And then, in the fall of 1992, she was gone.

She reappeared after Christmas. Now she rented a big apartment of her own, furnished with brand-new Arts and Crafts–style furniture and a killer stereo. Everyone else I knew was sitting on thrift store couches with their roommates, while she was throwing money around in a way that got attention.

Nora asked me out for a drink, just the two of us, which was a first. Was it a date? Perhaps it was, because she took me to the bar of the Hotel Northampton, the closest local approximation to a swank hotel lounge, painted pale green with white trelliswork everywhere. I nervously ordered a margarita with salt, at which Nora arched a brow.

“Sort of chilly for a marg?” she commented, as she asked for a scotch.

It was true, the January winds were making western Massachusetts uninviting. I should have ordered something dark in a smaller glass—my frosty margarita now seemed ridiculously juvenile.

“What’s that?” she asked, indicating the little metal box I had placed on the table.

The box was yellow and green and had originally held Sour Lemon pastilles. Napoleon gazed westward from its lid, identifiable by his cocked hat and gold epaulettes. The box had served as a wallet for a woman I’d known at Smith, an upperclasswoman who was the coolest person I had ever met. She had gone to art school, lived off campus, was wry and curious and kind and superhip, and one day when I had admired the box, she gave it to me. It was the perfect size for a pack of cigarettes, a license, and a twenty. When I tried to pull money out of my treasured tin wallet to pay for the round, Nora waved it away.

Where had she been for so many months? I asked, and Nora gave me an appraising once-over. She calmly explained to me that she had been brought into a drug-smuggling enterprise by a friend of her sister, who was “connected,” and that she had gone to Europe and been formally trained in the ways of the underworld by an American art dealer who was also “connected.” She had smuggled drugs into this country and been paid handsomely for her work.

I was completely floored. Why was Nora telling me this? What if I went to the police? I ordered another drink, half-certain that Nora was making the entire thing up and that this was the most harebrained seduction attempt ever.
I had met Nora’s younger sister once before, when she came to visit. She went by the name of Hester, was into the occult, and would leave a trail of charms and feathered trinkets made of chicken bones. I thought she was just a Wiccan heterosexual version of her sister, but apparently she was the lover of a West African drug kingpin. Nora described how she had traveled with Hester to Benin to meet the kingpin, who went by the name Alaji and bore a striking resemblance to MC Hammer. She had stayed as a guest at his compound, witnessed and been subject to “witch-doctor” ministrations, and was now considered his sister-in-law. It all sounded dark, awful, scary, wild—and exciting beyond belief. I couldn’t believe that she, the keeper of so many terrifying and tantalizing secrets, was taking me into her confidence.

It was as if by revealing her secrets to me, Nora had bound me to her, and a secretive courtship began. No one would call Nora a classic beauty, but she had wit and charm in excess and was a master at the art of seeming effortlessness. And as has always been true, I respond to people who come after me with clear determination. In her seduction of me, she was both persistent and patient.

Over the months that followed, we grew much closer, and I learned that a number of local guys I knew were secretly working for her, which proved reassuring to me. I was entranced by the illicit adventure Nora represented. When she was in Europe or Southeast Asia for a long period of time, I all but moved into her house, caring for her beloved black cats, Edith and Dum-Dum. She would call at odd hours of the night from the other side of the globe to see how the kitties were, and the phone line would click and hiss with the distance. I kept all this quiet—even as I was dodging questions from my already-curious friends.

Since business was conducted out of town, the reality of the drugs felt like a complete abstraction to me. I didn’t know anyone who used heroin; and the suffering of addiction was not something I thought about. One day in the spring Nora returned home with a brand-new white Miata convertible and a suitcase full of money. She dumped the cash on the bed and rolled around in it, naked and giggling. It was her biggest payout yet. Soon I was zipping around in that Miata, with Lenny Kravitz on the tape deck demanding to know, “Are You Gonna Go My Way?”

Despite (or perhaps because of) the bizarre romantic situation with Nora, I knew I needed to get out of Northampton
and do something. My friend Lisa B. and I had been saving our tips and decided that we would quit our jobs at the brewery and take off for San Francisco at the end of the summer. (Lisa knew nothing about Nora’s secret activities.) When I told Nora, she replied that she would love to have an apartment in San Francisco and suggested that we fly out there and house-hunt. I was shocked that she felt so strongly about me.

Just weeks before I was to leave Northampton, Nora learned that she had to return to Indonesia. “Why don’t you come with me, keep me company?” she suggested. “You don’t have to do anything, just hang out.”

I had never been out of the United States. Although I was supposed to begin my new life in California, the prospect was irresistible. I wanted an adventure, and Nora had one on offer. Nothing bad had ever happened to the guys from Northampton who had gone with her to exotic places as errand boys—in fact, they returned with high-flying stories that only a select group could even hear. I rationalized that there was no harm in keeping Nora company. She gave me money to purchase a ticket from San Francisco to Paris and said there would be a ticket to Bali waiting for me at the Garuda Air counter at Charles de Gaulle. It was that simple.

Nora’s cover for her illegal activities was that she and her partner in crime, a goateed guy named Jack, were starting an art and literary magazine—questionable, but it lent itself to vagueness. When I explained to my friends and family that I was moving to San Francisco and would be working and traveling for the magazine, they were uniformly surprised and suspicious of my new job, but I rebuffed their questions, adopting the air of a woman of mystery. As I drove out of Northampton headed west with my buddy Lisa, I felt as if I were finally embarking on my life. I felt ready for anything.

Lisa and I drove nonstop from Massachusetts to the Montana border, taking turns sleeping and driving. In the middle of the night we pulled into a rest stop to sleep, where we awoke to see the incredible golden eastern Montana dawn. I could not remember ever being so happy. After lingering in Big Sky country, we sped through Wyoming and Nevada until finally we sailed over the Bay Bridge into San Francisco. I had a plane to catch.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0385523394
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Publishing Group; 0 edition (March 8, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 327 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780385523394
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0385523394
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.1 x 0.67 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #38,085 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #79 in Criminology (Books)
- #432 in Women's Biographies
- #1,292 in Memoirs (Books)

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4.2 20,187 ratings

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Piper Kerman

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Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American memoirist convicted of felony money-laundering charges; her experiences in prison provided the basis for the comedy-drama Netflix series Orange Is the New Black.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Mark Schierbecker (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Customers find the book engaging and informative. They describe the writing as well-written, easy to read, and accurate. Readers praise the compelling storyline and well-developed characters. The book allows them to sympathize and relate to characters they'd never imagine.

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2,056 customers mention "Readability"2,026 positive30 negative

Customers find the book engaging and entertaining. They say it's a worthwhile read with an important message. The last chapter is also very good, and it's a must-read for any book club.

"...I will say that Netflix did an excellent job in creating a very good show that really did a super job in mixing in enough things that were for the..." Read more

"...I haven't seen the TV series, but from what I've heard, the book is better, or at least quite different. It kept my interest all the way through...." Read more

"...one is sensationalistic, marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth. This is the book: The first chapter..." Read more

"...A worthy read, by all means, but it's probably best to pick up the book without the expectation that it will be very much like the TV show." Read more

1,195 customers mention "Insight"1,178 positive17 negative

Customers find the book insightful and engaging. They say it provides an accurate reflection of life in a women's prison. The book is described as humorous, self-deprecating, and empathetic.

"...the book so I will miss it, but I have to say it is very touching and honest and entertaining...." Read more

"...I would highly recommend this book. It's involving and well-written." Read more

"...takes responsibility and this moving book has changed and inspired hundreds of thousands...." Read more

"...'s an educated, middle class white woman with a loving family, supportive friends, and guaranteed employment upon her release from prison in one year..." Read more

974 customers mention "Story quality"739 positive235 negative

Customers find the story compelling, informative, and moving. They describe it as a powerful memoir that shares experiences with wit and self-deprecation. The author shares her experiences in an anecdotal style.

"...for the few $$ that it costs as you get your money back in the honest true story that must have been very hard for Piper to write and remember that..." Read more

"...The ending was great--that is, the last section, where she is transferred to another facility...." Read more

"...marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth. This is the book: The first chapter makes it hard to..." Read more

"...Kerman is a solid writer, but not a stellar one, and her story feels unfocused at times...." Read more

965 customers mention "Writing quality"797 positive168 negative

Customers find the writing style concise and easy to read. They appreciate the author's accurate descriptions and detailed account of inmate life. The book is described as a quick, smooth read that provides a balanced view of gritty realism and humanizing prisoners.

"...it to anyone who is looking for something that is a fast and easy book to read! Happy reading if you decide to get it...." Read more

"...I would highly recommend this book. It's involving and well-written." Read more

"...But one is sensationalistic, marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth. This is the book: The first chapter..." Read more

"...At times the writing impressed me, like this vivid description: &#..." Read more

286 customers mention "Character development"223 positive63 negative

Customers like the well-developed characters with unique personalities. They find the book interesting and caring, providing a more human perspective on Kerman as a person. The book provides more background on Piper and makes it easy to look up characters that haven't been mentioned for a while.

"...It is very interesting reading about all the wonderful women that she crossed paths with in of all places a prison...." Read more

"...The TV series runneth over with rich, exciting characters, who make it difficult for you to entertain prison stereotypes for too long...." Read more

"...author as the mass of other inmates, a noisy crowd, become individuals with unique personalities...." Read more

"...Color means "unworthy content of character" and that one can do anything one feels like doing without consideration of virtue...." Read more

218 customers mention "Heartfeltness"209 positive9 negative

Customers find the writing heartfelt, funny, and relatable. They say it allows them to sympathize and relate to people they'd never imagine. The characters are described as kind, loving, and caring. Readers appreciate the honesty and how the book portrays how Piper felt on a daily basis.

"...the end of the book so I will miss it, but I have to say it is very touching and honest and entertaining...." Read more

"...but also brings us to a level of understanding about how all people are equally valuable. She brings us closer to the revelations that she learns...." Read more

"...fairly lucky- she's an educated, middle class white woman with a loving family, supportive friends, and guaranteed employment upon her release from..." Read more

"...I love the stories of the prison cooking and most of all the lovely friendships that Piper developed with women from all walks of life...." Read more

1,111 customers mention "Enthralling"733 positive378 negative

Customers have different views on the book. Some find it entertaining and interesting, while others find it boring and uneventful. The memoir lacks immediacy and seems written long after the fact, according to some readers.

"...I have to say I absolutely loved the show. I looked forward to sitting with my new Kindle and watching each new episode...." Read more

"...It kept my interest all the way through. I wish that we had been reminded of what all the abbreviations meant...." Read more

"...The memoir also lacks immediacy- it feels as though it was written long after the fact with the benefit of 20/20 vision..." Read more

"...Both Pulitzer winners. Both teach. But one is sensationalistic, marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth...." Read more

225 customers mention "Pacing"94 positive131 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced and concise, with no lagging or boring parts. Others feel the book drags and is repetitive at times, making it difficult to read all the way through.

"...The book seriously lacked conflict because everyone in prison was just so damn nice, and as a result, I got a bit bored...." Read more

"...recommend it to anyone who is looking for something that is a fast and easy book to read! Happy reading if you decide to get it...." Read more

"...One is to discover the bad conditions, stupidity and outright evil rampant in the U.S. prison system...." Read more

"...but Kerman makes no excuses, takes responsibility and this moving book has changed and inspired hundreds of thousands...." Read more

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Kristin M. Pickford
Great Read!
Reviewed in the United States on September 4, 2013
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I had in the last month subscribed to Netflix, and in doing so, I had heard a lot of the hype about the new original series called Orange is the New Black. I watched the 13 episodes in a matter of a couple of days. I have to say I absolutely loved the show. I looked forward to sitting with my new Kindle and watching each new episode. It was really sad to have it come to an end so quickly because I really had enjoyed it so much. I happened to be listening to NPR one day and heard the show Fresh Air with Terri Gross. Her guest that day happened to be Piper Kerman. She is the woman who wrote this memoir of her year in a Women's Prison. I became even more intrigued with the differences that she was telling Terri about from the book to the show on Netflix. I then decided that I really wanted to hear the real story and see what it was like. I didn't hesitate to go right to Amazon.com and pick up a copy of the new paperback book Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison by Piper Kerman. I am very happy that I decided to get the book written by the person who actually lived the story. I will say that Netflix did an excellent job in creating a very good show that really did a super job in mixing in enough things that were for the entertainment factor of the show. It really didn't go overboard too much but just had the right mix in adding things that made the show seem like the story was really in line with Hollywood and at the same time maintaining enough parts of the truth to the real story that the book tells by the author. I am still reading it, but am going to be finishing it within the next two days and I am loving it as much as I loved watching each new show that came out. I really am hoping that Netflix will pick up the series for a second season just because it is a really different and fun show to watch. I would absolutely recommend this book as well as the Netflix original series to anyone. Piper is a very likable character in the show, and person in true life as she tells her story no holds barred. It is very interesting reading about all the wonderful women that she crossed paths with in of all places a prison. There is a lot of flat out honesty that she just tells her story with. It makes you really like her and most of the women that she became close friends with while she was in the Danbury Women's Prison of all places. It isn't like she had a great time being in prison but the way that she tells her story is very much like what I would think it would feel like if it was me who was in her place. All of the new experiences that she confronts and all the kind women who really helped her in the first few weeks of actually getting used to being in prison and the rules that she has to learn and the way that the "old timers" really did a great job in helping her in those first most terrifying early days when she got there really is very touching and extremely entertaining. I can imagine that she must have stayed in touch with some of the women who were going to be there long after she did her year, so that when it was time for mail every day, some of those incredibly kind and important women that Piper did get to know well are rewarded in getting letters from her I have to believe from time to time. Like I mentioned earlier, I would recommend this book to really anyone who enjoys reading about true life and just likes to read a good book every now and then. It really has been great to pick up at any time and plowing through a couple of chapters in one sitting. I am approaching the end of the book so I will miss it, but I have to say it is very touching and honest and entertaining. And not in the way that you would get any kind of pleasure out of someone else's unfortunate story. It is extremely hard to put down and every time I pick it up, I imagine finishing it. But I honestly like to delay the ending because it is such a great book. I think that it would be a very difficult book not to like for just about anyone. I say go ahead and grab it for the few $$ that it costs as you get your money back in the honest true story that must have been very hard for Piper to write and remember that year she spent in Danbury when she actually sat down to write the book.

I have a younger sister who held the job of a Prison Guard, and I don't understand why she became entwined with that work because I have a hard time picturing the sister that I grew up with doing that kind of unpleasant work. She has since gone into the ARMY for a 5 year stay and has been out for about 8 years now and she is working as a cop in a large city. Something that wasn't expected of anyone in our family where members would pass down the badge of courage, because we didn't come from that type of a family who enjoys doing that, passing the baton on to the next member. It was just something that she ended up in as a line of work. I think mostly because of the power that she must feel when she puts on her uniform and gets into her cruiser everyday for work. She has turned into someone who I haven't known as an adult since she came back from Afghanistan and it has been hard to come to terms with the type of person that she has turned into. To know how she has become a very different person than the girl that I grew up with is extremely hard to deal with because I had never pictured her becoming the type of person that she has truly become. I think that it bothers me because I try to figure out what it was that turned her in the direction that she took because we had the same upper middle class life growing up with two parents who truly loved us and that she could come from such a "normal" family and choose to mix with the dark side of prison, then being in the ARMY, and now being a cop. But that is a whole other story itself. I just want to say that I am truly enjoying this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for something that is a fast and easy book to read! Happy reading if you decide to get it. I hope that this review will help you lean towards buying it! Enjoy!

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Pearl
as good literature does
Reviewed in the United States on April 25, 2015
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This memoir took me to a place I had never been. Transported me, as good literature does. At times it was challenging to keep track of who everyone was, especially if they dropped out of the narrative for a long while, and then suddenly reappeared. Pops and Natalie and several others are easy to keep track of. I haven't seen the TV series, but from what I've heard, the book is better, or at least quite different. It kept my interest all the way through. I wish that we had been reminded of what all the abbreviations meant. I read this on a basic Kindle where it's very difficult to go backwards to check on things. Piper Kerman is a privileged, upper middle class, Smith educated white woman, and she writes from that perspective. However, she is humbled by her experience and respectful of the women she interacts with and becomes friends with. The ending was great--that is, the last section, where she is transferred to another facility. We get the contrast of the relatively calm and benign prison of Danbury (a prison nevertheless) to the holding facility in Chicago where it seems much more prison-like according to stereotypes the public at large might have of places of incarceration. If there's a focus or moral to this book, it's about mandatory lengths of sentences and how they are so unfair because there is no flexibility in them. Kerman is not making that case for herself--she had a short sentence. But she's making it, in a non-didactic way, for many of the others she met in prison who are serving long terms because the judges have no ability to change them. I would highly recommend this book. It's involving and well-written.

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David Seaman
Not since Rachel Carson has a woman's book changed the world so much.
Reviewed in the United States on October 25, 2015
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It's famous now: "Orange Is The New Black." But we know her from Jenji Kohan's Netflix series and writer Piper Kernan is now known merely as "Chapman." To review the series along with Kernan's memoir is to compare "Gone With The Wind" to "The Color Purple." Both 1935. Both Pulitzer winners. Both teach. But one is sensationalistic, marketable, and the other is a well paced, brilliant, honest story of truth.
This is the book: The first chapter makes it hard to sympathize with Piper. Her actions are clearly foolish. Thoughtless, even selfish. Yet she claims no excuses. She doesn't claim to be duped; she doesn't claim ignorance and we're pleased when she walks away from the horrific damage of heroin traffic and disappears into SFO, thinking she'll never turn back.
Clearly she's forced to. Two Federal agents show up at her door with indictments five years later. This is the first, subtle indication that our judicial system moves at a snail pace. Piper doesn't mention it; we're expected to think. If she must find her way, she leads us to find our own way too, and wisely, since our own transgressions must entangle with growth.
Each chapter is both chronological and encompassing. Based on allowing us to glean her lessons through the events that unfold, each chapter tells us what life in Danbury Federal Prison is like but also brings us to a level of understanding about how all people are equally valuable. She brings us closer to the revelations that she learns. She understands that her crime fed the illness and destruction of hundreds of women with whom she now lives and needs.
As the book progresses other subtleties arise among the slow day to day humiliations that Federal Prisons enjoy. Her language evolves through the book and becomes "street"- amusing for a Smith graduate. Her love and Alliegence for people for whom she once she gave no second thought becomes beautiful. Her manner of carefully assisting those too proud to show weakness grows more and more. Her ability to write: assist others achieve degrees; letters for appeal; her ability to make "prison cheesecake"(recipe humorously included), her foot rubs to her friend, serving more than a decade, who spends 16 hours a day running the kitchen. (Kate Mulgrew-the acting legend-changes this character for television and though brilliant, it loses some of the love.) piper's support from the outside is not only something that makes her the luckiest inmate, she shares her books, magazines and letters without ego. She conceals great news and also conceals her despondence. And there's a lot of despondence.
Piper Kerman spends a lot of time in her head and we're there with her. She never takes for granted the remarkable support from friends and family outside and the reader wishes to find a love and devotion of her fiancée, Larry Smith, who travels from New York City to Danbury Connecticut every single Friday. We all wish to have this unconditional love, and Larry learned of Piper's smuggling vast amounts of drug money at 22 only after she's indicted. It appears that Piper takes over a year of incarceration to learn what Larry knew from the start.
Midway through the book we ponder the chance that there will be no denouement. We're wrong. The last seventy-five pages are electric, terrifying, and Piper is forced to face the single piece of history that holds her back. This accelerates until the book ends with the speed and surprise that prison release is in reality. In three paragraphs, Piper is deposited, unreformed by the DOP, unprepared for re matriculation, alone on a strange street in a strange city.
Kerman's reason for writing this book is to first answer the constant question, "What's it like?" She states in the paperback afterward that shows like "Oz" and "Cops" are ludicrous exaggerations. So too is Netflix's "Orange Is The New Black." But bad business in Hollywood is unwise. No one wants to be Fredo Corleone. It's clear there's a need for prison reform. The United States represents 5% of the world population yet the United States incarcerates 25% of the worlds prisoners. 90% of US incarcerated are non violent criminals on mandatory minimums (George H. W. Bush's "Three Strikes and your out.") in 1985, the US incarcerated 500,000 citizens. Today, 2.9 million.
Piper Kerman took 279 pages to finally appear a hero. The evolution of the book mirrors her own evolution. The addendum is filled with non-profit organizations to help correctional reform. As Kerman said, Prison prepares you for a life in Prison; not for a life on the outside which is why there's a revolving door between Prison and Underprivileged neighborhoods.
Imagine if the money we spent on prisons was directed toward schools, libraries, museums. What an improvement.
So sure, we may begin this book with a chip on our shoulder, but Kerman makes no excuses, takes responsibility and this moving book has changed and inspired hundreds of thousands. Netflix, Jenji Kohan and "OITNB" is a show worth seeing for brilliance and entertainment, but Piper Kerman's book is in a category head and shoulders above the series and should be on your bed table now.

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Mariel
Lectura obligatoria!
Reviewed in Mexico on September 24, 2024
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Nunca vi la serie, pero escuché mucho de ella en su momento. En una de esas tardes donde uno encuentra curiosidades para leer, llegué a este libro. Es un excelente libro. Atrapa rápidamente con la forma en que Piper cuenta su historia. Da una perspectiva que nunca había considerado de las mujeres que están en prisión y todo a lo que pueden enfrentarse durante su tiempo de condena. El libro profundiza mucho más en como sobrelleva los días Piper que lo que se ve en la serie. Vale mucho la pena este libro.

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~hollybooker
Love it!
Reviewed in Turkey on January 7, 2025
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This book is just so special for me...

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Alberto
LIBRO ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
Reviewed in Spain on July 19, 2023
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Muy buen libro para conocer la verdadera historia de la serie de Netflix. La trama del libro es completamente diferente a la de la serie.

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Gursewak Singh Sidhu
Good book to read ..
Reviewed in India on June 18, 2022
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A book that makes you wonder of who is sane? American justice system is so screwed up. White collar crimes - people who steal millions can get away with fines and no jail time just because they have good lawyers, and on other hand poor people get sent to jails for just 10grams of drugs. America and countries in general, really need to get their justice system together.

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Kindle-Kunde
Unterhaltsam
Reviewed in Germany on February 8, 2021
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Mir gefällt das Buch sehr gut.
Ich habe die Serie gesehen und hab mich gefragt, wie viel davon wahr ist. Natürlich stimmt da nicht so viel überein, aber das Buch ist trotzdem sehr interessant.
Lässt sich gut in ein paar Stunden durchlesen.

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Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison Paperback – March 8, 2011

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5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read!

4.0 out of 5 stars as good literature does

5.0 out of 5 stars Not since Rachel Carson has a woman's book changed the world so much.

Top reviews from other countries

5.0 out of 5 stars Lectura obligatoria!

5.0 out of 5 stars Love it!

5.0 out of 5 stars LIBRO ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book to read ..

5.0 out of 5 stars Unterhaltsam

Great Read!

as good literature does

Not since Rachel Carson has a woman's book changed the world so much.

Lectura obligatoria!

Love it!

LIBRO ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

Good book to read ..

Unterhaltsam