By Cristina Rathbone

“Life in a women’s prison is full of surprises,” writes Cristina Rathbone in her landmark account of life at MCI-Framingham.

And so it is. After two intense court battles with prison officials, Rathbone gained unprecedented access to the otherwise invisible women of the oldest running women’s prison in America.

 

The picture that emerges is both astounding and enraging. Women reveal the agonies of separation from family, and the prevalence of depression, and of sexual predation, and institutional malaise behind bars.

 

But they also share their more personal hopes and concerns. There is horror in prison for sure, but Rathbone insists there is also humor and romance and downright bloody-mindedness.

 

Getting beyond the political to the personal, A World Apart is both a triumph of empathy and a searing indictment of a system that has overlooked the plight of women in prison for far too long.

 

At the center of the book is Denise, a mother serving five years for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense. Denise’s son is 9 and obsessed with Beanie Babies when she first arrives in prison. By the time she is finally released, he is 14 and in prison himself.

 

As Denise struggles to reconcile life in prison with the realities of her son’s excessive freedom on the outside, we meet women such as:

Fearlessly truthful and revelatory, A World Apart is a major work of investigative journalism and social justice.

 

304 pages. Softcover. 2006.

 

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