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

by Piper Kerman (Author)

20,219 ratings

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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
Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 8, 2011
Edition ‏ : ‎ 0
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 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: #44,905 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #43 in Criminology (Books)
- #277 in Sociology Reference
- #636 in Memoirs (Books)

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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 well-written and engaging, providing a fascinating look inside today's minimum security prison system. The memoir offers an honest and sympathetic portrayal of Piper Kerman's experiences, and customers appreciate how it allows readers to sympathize and relate to the characters. The story quality receives positive feedback, with one customer noting its moving parts, while character development is praised for its well-observed characters and situations. The entertainment value and pacing receive mixed reactions - while some find it building into a compelling narrative, others find it less interesting, and while some note there are no lagging or boring parts, others say it drags.

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Readability Insight Story quality Character development Heartfeltness Look Entertainment value Pacing

2,605 customers mention "Readability"2,408 positive197 negative

Customers find the book well-written and fascinating, with one customer noting it wasn't sensationalized.

"...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

"...She goes into great detail on the day-to-day existence of an inmate...." 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

"...A top book by a talented writer" Read more

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

Customers find the book insightful and educational, providing an engaging glimpse into prison life and thought-provoking reflections.

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

"...It made me really want to see prison reform and it made me sympathize with inmates and want to help them as an alley...." Read more

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

"...However, much of the memoir is funny and uplifting, about the great friends she makes among the other prisoners...." Read more

974 customers mention "Story quality"739 positive235 negative

Customers find the book's storytelling compelling and straightforward, describing it as a remarkable memoir.

"...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

"There are three levels of information in this powerful memoir...." 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

"...What I didn’t like Abrupt ending. I felt the ending was rather abrupt - it ends literally as Kerman walks out of prison after having..." Read more

286 customers mention "Character development"223 positive63 negative

Customers appreciate the character development in the book, noting well-observed characters and situations, and find the cast engaging to match up. One customer particularly values the background information provided on the main character Piper.

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

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

"...find it hard to fit in in prison - but she has just the right personality to make it...." 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 book emotionally engaging, allowing readers to sympathize and relate to the characters' experiences.

"...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

"...Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black is that it allows you to sympathize and relate to people you’d never imagine you could sympathize and relate..." 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

"...racial & class lines to befriend her fellow inmates, treating everyone as an equal, never seeing herself as above anyone else, & in fact using her..." Read more

178 customers mention "Look"150 positive28 negative

Customers appreciate the book's honest portrayal of a young woman's experience in today's minimum security prison, noting it is not too graphic.

"...at a book reading/signing at a women's prison, and she is lovely in real life...." Read more

"...Instead, it’s an honest look of a young woman who made a mistake (as almost all prison stories are) and how she finds her way within the system...." Read more

"...She IS pretty and she IS smart and she IS well educated, but to me it didn't feel like she was tooting that horn so much as acknowledging that she..." Read more

"I thoroughly enjoyed this informative, eye-opening look at living in a women's prison, albeit a minimum security federal prison in Danbury, CT...." Read more

1,111 customers mention "Entertainment value"734 positive377 negative

Customers have mixed opinions about the entertainment value of the book, with some finding it interesting and compelling, while others feel it is less engaging and disappointing.

"...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

"...The jobs, food, visitation, guards, and recreational activities are all very well described...." Read more

"...that fit us, being able to purchase a radio, however cheap and inefficient, whenever you want and not having to wait until you can pay $25 or $50..." 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 mixed opinions about the pacing of the book, with some noting there are no lagging or boring parts, while others find it slow.

"...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
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

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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Kim Erskine
Review of Piper Kerman’s Orange Is The New Black Novel
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2013
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Piper Kerman was no criminal. She was not a dangerous woman. She was just a young adult who made some really, really bad decisions. Did she deserved to be punished for her actions? Absolutely. Did she deserve to be sentenced to a year in women’s prison for a crime committed 10 years ago? Not at all. But that is exactly what happened and what happens to many women everyday in the US.

I’ve always been anti drugs and anti legalization of drugs including marijuana. And I still hold those beliefs. But whereas before I believed that drug addicts deserved to be confined to prison, I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black definitely helped me to reevaluate my beliefs.

Prison is a place that no one ever wants to be. You are completely blocked from the outside world. That seems to be the biggest punishment. You are alone with fellow inmates and your thoughts. Yes, you can have visitors — but they must be approved, your time will be short, and you can’t so much as give them a hug most of the time. This seems to be the harshest punishment in prison. Not that prison is a walk in the park.

Living in prison is hard. It’s supposed to be. The food is terrible (unless you’re lucky and there’s extra vegetables at the salad bar that day…then it’s almost manageable), you’re expected to do odd jobs you’re not qualified for (Piper was an electrician…), and you’re treated like a completely worthless, inhuman…thing. Not even a person.

I think that there are people out there in the world that deserve this kind of punishment. Child molesters (although I honestly don’t think prison is enough punishment for them…the death penalty sounds best to me), rapist, murders, etc. These are true criminals who do not belong in society.

The women detailed in Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black are not murderers. They are not rapists. They are not child molestors.

Honestly, they are not that much different from you and I. They just made poor decisions.

Piper was a drug smuggler. She bought in illegal drugs to and from the US for a VERY short time. Actually all she did was handle money. She was convicted 10 years after committing the crime. She was living a completely different life at the time, free of drugs and any other crime. She worked very hard and was in a faithful relationship with a man who really loved and took care of her.

Piper’s inmates were drug addicts mainly, who were serving very long sentences for possession or violation of probation. They needed help for their addictions. Rehab, therapy, inpatient, outpatient, something that could actually help them. Prison confined them and made it difficult (though not always impossible) for them to obtain drugs…but it didn’t correct the problem. Many of them ended up back in prison right after being released, mainly because while they were treated like criminals (which they weren’t, they were just people who made poor decisions…) they never actually received the help they so desperately needed.

Then there’s other inmates with even more mild crimes. Piper talks of one who was serving a very long sentence (I believe it was 5 or 7 years) for Internet auction fraud. E-bay. Have you ever been ripped off of a deal? I think we all have at some point. Did the person who ripped you off go to jail for it? Probably not. They were forgiven and allowed to move on with their life. Why was this girl any different? She made poor decisions…bad mistakes. She deserved to be punished. But by punishment I mean returning the money she stole and being fined and banned from the website(s). Jail? That’s a bit harsh, unnecessary, and ineffective.

What I liked the most about Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black is that it allows you to sympathize and relate to people you’d never imagine you could sympathize and relate to. What do I have in common with a prison inmate? Actually quite a few things. I’ve made poor decisions, I’ve made mistakes. I am human. I have feelings.

America’s prisons need to be reformed. It’s no secret that they are overcrowded. I now realize why they are over-crowded. It’s not because there’s such a high rate of crime and not enough prisons to fit everyone in. It’s because most of the people in prison really don’t need to be there.

Here’s what I propose:

Release a majority of prisoners unless they are TRUE criminals (example — murderers, rapists, child molesters, terrorists, etc.)

Instead of sending drug addicts to prison, GET THEM HELP. Make them go to intense rehab/treatment facilities, counseling, etc.

Drug smugglers, those convicted for fraud and similar minor offenses should be fined. If we start fining more people and limiting the number of people we send to prison we’ll cut down the costs of operating prisons, add more money to the economy, and lower America’s overall debt and help to solve the problem with prisons being overcrowded.

I learned a lot from reading Piper Kerman’s Orange is the New Black. This book completely changed how I view prisons and inmates. I highly recommend this book — it will definitely change how you think. It made me really want to see prison reform and it made me sympathize with inmates and want to help them as an alley. These are issues I never previously cared about and never thought I would want to take action against. I always thought “you do the crime, you do the time”. Now I’m not so sure how much I support that.

Have any of you guys read this book? If so feel free to leave a comment about your thoughts!

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Frank Wagner
Terrific
Reviewed in Australia on July 29, 2016
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What an absolutely marvelous read, interesting and written in a down-to-earth style of a world that most of us will hopefully never experience. I certainly enjoyed reading it.

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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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Lizzy from My Little Book Blog
This book is a brilliant compilation of wit, humour, defeat, and hope
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 2, 2015
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The book for me was a surprising read; I thought that the book would be a story with a definite plot that weaved through creating anticipation to a final climax, (this was mostly due to it being made into a television show!) I was completely wrong and if I’m honest I’m glad I was. The book is a better book than I could have expected with no added drama and no over the top embellishments. It is an account of the correctional system from an insider’s perspective detailing the difficulties, the stories and the dreams of the prisoners that Kerman finds herself in the company of. Through the book we learn of Kerman’s treacherous past after getting involved in the drugs trade through a girlfriend. This comes back to haunt her and Piper is convicted and sentenced. After ten years, she is finally sent to the correctional facility in Danbury where she is met with a host of lively and understanding convicts. Among the bunch is the Piper’s bunkie, the quiet and serious Natalie that keeps their cube spotless, Little Janet the endearing friend that Piper grows extremely close to and Pop, a mothering figure that after a couple of months takes Piper under her wing. Down for a number of sentences (although all are for minor crimes for fraud or drug smuggling rather than violence) Piper learns from them and many others how to deal with the difficult situation she is in and learns the system of how to get by in this new world.

The main strength in the book is found in the little anecdotes or sketches of the ways that the prisoners get through their sentences by stretching the rules. These include a number of things such as decorations on birthdays, movie nights and pedicures. Piper describes the strong rivalry between two of the woman that have their own pedicure ‘salons’ in their cubes and the way in which each of the prisoners is equally viciously loyal. She also describes the contraband food; with a tiny microwave the prisoners would raid food from the dining hall to use for cooking projects such as corn chips made into mash by adding water and chilaquiles a prison delicacy. By the end of the book Piper is excellent at creating the contraband prison pudding, cheesecake. Additionally stories include the way in which prisoners offer to make the newbie’s beds and how many of the prisoners crochet different products with skill and dexterity. The book is full of titbits of life in the prison and the way in which the ladies find pleasure in the smallest of effects in which to get by. The characters are well described and each has a story to tell. The book weaves between each of them giving them a way of talking and telling their story and shows us how each of them enables Piper to grow and find herself in such a destructive and all-consuming setting. I don’t want to give too much away so read the book!

Many have argued in reviews that the book is superficial and false; many argue that although Piper maintains through the book that she was innocent she must have known what she was doing when she was committing the crime. However, to me, through the book Piper acknowledges that through her crimes she has ultimately been providing the drugs trade that has put so many of her fellow prisoners and friends behind bars for so many years. I thought that through the book Piper begins to fully understand the extent her crime has affected not only her, but also the addicts around her, and by the end she is fully able to repent and feel humble that she has paid her price. Additionally I felt the strength in the book came in Piper’s strength; she did not whine or complain but took her punishment with understanding and tried to fit in accordingly. Additionally, some have complained that it seems odd that her family and noticeably Larry’s family (her fiancé) adjusted so easily to her being in prison and came to visit her often. I would argue that unless we have been in her exact situation then it is difficult to comment fairly. None of us know the way in which our family or our partner’s family would react in such a situation; I know that if it were me I would want the constant support that Kerman has and this book only shows the importance of family and support to prisoners when in prison.

Additionally Kerman uses the book as a way of describing the problems in prisons mostly to do with the lack of support for the prisoners that have boyfriends or partners in jail, and prisoners that try and re-enter society after their sentence. In the acknowledgements it discusses the work that Kerman is now doing to help female prisoners to gain jobs and housing after finishing their sentence, which is excellent. Kerman states throughout the book that she was one of the lucky ones, with good support and somewhere to go after prison. Many do not get that chance. This book is a brilliant compilation of wit, humour, defeat, and hope. I hope that Kerman realises her dream of helping these women in the future and continues to make a positive effect on the rehabilitation of such prisoners.

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José Ramos
Recomendo
Reviewed in Brazil on September 12, 2019
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Muito bom.ç e chegou bem antes do previsto. Entrega rápida mesmo.

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José Ramos

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Reviewed in Brazil on September 12, 2019
Muito bom.ç e chegou bem antes do previsto. Entrega rápida mesmo.

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

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