Orange Is The New Black (book)
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''Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison'' (titled ''Orange Is the New Black: My Time in a Women's Prison'' in some editions) is a 2010 memoir by American author
Piper Kerman Piper Eressea Kerman (born September 28, 1969) is an American author. She was indicted in 1998 on charges of felony, felonious money-laundering activities, and sentenced to 15 months' detention in a federal correctional facility, of which she eve ...
, which tells the story of her
money laundering Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
and
drug trafficking A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...
conviction and subsequent year spent in a
federal Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...
women's prison This article discusses the incarceration of women in correctional facilities. As of 2013 across the world, 625,000 women and children were being held in penal institutions, and the female prison population was increasing in all continents.
. The book was adapted into the
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
comedy-drama series ''
Orange Is the New Black ''Orange Is the New Black'' (sometimes abbreviated to ''OITNB'') is an American comedy-drama streaming television series created by Jenji Kohan for Netflix. The series is based on Piper Kerman's memoir '' Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Wo ...
''.


Background

The memoir details the events which occur as a result of Piper Kerman's involvement with Nora Jansen (Catherine Cleary Wolters in real life), a former friend, lover and drug smuggler. In 1993, shortly after her graduation from
Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...
, Kerman agreed to accompany Jansen on several trips to Asia and Europe, going as far as carrying a suitcase of laundered money across the Atlantic Ocean before returning to San Francisco to "piece her life back together". In May 1998, Kerman was visited by two Customs agents and six years later she was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. After serving time in three different facilities (
FCI Danbury The Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury (FCI Danbury) is a low-security United States federal prison for male and female inmates in Danbury, Connecticut. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Depar ...
,
FTC Oklahoma City The Federal Transfer Center (FTC Oklahoma City) is a United States federal prison for male and female inmates in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice, and ...
, and MCC Chicago), Kerman was released in March 2005. The title is based on the
snowclone A snowclone is a cliché and phrasal template that can be used and recognized in multiple variants. The term was coined as a neologism in 2004, derived from Journalese, journalistic clichés that referred to the number of Inuit words for snow. H ...
"the new black", and on the fact that in the United States, prisoners are thought to wear orange
prison uniform A prison uniform is the standardized clothes worn by prisoners. It usually includes visually distinct clothes worn to indicate the wearer is a prisoner, in clear distinction from civil clothing. A prison uniform serves the purpose to make prison ...
s.


Reception

Sasha Abramsky of the ''
Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'' stated that the book "documents the author’s attempts to preserve her individuality in the face of a gray, impersonal bureaucracy—one prisoner counts, strip searches, rules governing the minutiae of life, and continual reminders that prisoners, by definition, have no power, no real autonomy."Abramsky, Sasha. "American Justice." ''
Columbia Journalism Review The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'', May–June, 2010, Vol.49(1), p.55(3) eer Reviewed Journal Online: May 1, 2010. Onlin
p. 3

Archive
. Retrieved on July 9, 2014. "The juxtaposition between Texas Tough and Orange Is the New Black is fascinating, and makes them well worth reading together."
Abramsky wrote that the book is mostly "a journey of self-discovery, describing how one can find one’s true strengths during moments of adversity" and that it "is more similar to South African anti-apartheid activist
Albie Sachs Albert "Albie" Louis Sachs (born 30 January 1935) is a South African lawyer, activist, writer, and former judge appointed to the first Constitutional Court of South Africa by Nelson Mandela. Early life and education Albie Sachs was born on ...
's ''Jail Diary'' than it is to, say,
Mumia Abu-Jamal Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook; April 24, 1954) is an American political activist and journalist who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. While on death r ...
’s denunciatory communiqués from Pennsylvania’s death row." In her review for ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
'', Jessica Grose argued that the book is not an examination of women within prison, but rather belongs to the middle-class-transgression genre, in which women from more privileged social classes go into situations which are considered degrading. She said that the book should have included Kerman's insight into her own behavior and "a bit of this moral ambiguity would have helped Kerman's memoir a whole lot."Grose, Jessica.
What's a Nice Blonde Like Me Doing in Prison?
''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''. April 8, 2010. Retrieved on April 10, 2016.
June Thomas, also from ''Slate'', cited Grose's review and added that "ultimately, though, the book feels like a well-written, readable stage in Kerman’s rehabilitation."Thomas, June.
How ''Orange Is the New Black'' Improves on the Book
" ''
Slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...
''. July 22, 2013. Retrieved on April 10, 2016.
Thomas stated that the television show had improved on the book by expanding on Kerman's descriptions of real people and turning them into compelling fictional characters. Writing in the ''
Journal-Advocate The Journal-Advocate is a daily newspaper in Sterling, Colorado. It is published by Prairie Mountain Publishing Prairie Mountain Media is an American publishing company owned by Digital First Media. It owns a series of newspapers, most noteworth ...
'', Tricia Ketchum called the book "not your typical 'I survived prison memoir', referring to Kerman as "spoiled" as she received multiple care packages and money into her commissary. Ketchum concludes, "The best part of this book is the message that it leaves you with: No matter what choices you make, you never realize just how much they will impact the lives of those around you until it is too late." The book was selected by the
UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...
Library as its 2015 book for the university-wide reading program "UCSB Reads".


See also

*
Incarceration of women in the United States The incarceration of women in the United States refers to the imprisonment of women in both prisons and jails in the United States. There are approximately 219,000 incarcerated women in the US according to a November 2018 report by the Prison Po ...
* ''
My Companions in the Bleak House ''My Companions in the Bleak House'' ( cz, Přítelkyně z domu smutku) is a novel by Czech author Eva Kantůrková, first published in 1984, and was the first recipient of the Tom Stoppard Prize. It is a fictionalised account of Kantůrková's ...
'' *
Prison uniform A prison uniform is the standardized clothes worn by prisoners. It usually includes visually distinct clothes worn to indicate the wearer is a prisoner, in clear distinction from civil clothing. A prison uniform serves the purpose to make prison ...
, some are orange jumpsuits


References


External links

* {{Orange Is the New Black English-language books American memoirs Debut books 2010 non-fiction books Memoirs of imprisonment Imprisonment and detention of women in the United States Spiegel & Grau books Orange Is the New Black Non-fiction books adapted into television shows