I’LL FLY AWAY

The second accomplished collection of writings from women incarcerated in Connecticut’s York Correctional Institution, edited again by bestselling novelist Lamb (Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters, 2003, etc.).

One would have thought the first volume, with its probing examinations of lives run amok, would have convinced prison authorities of the value of a writing program in which prisoners focus and take account. But the prison bureaucracy tried to shut it down, writes an incredulous and furious Lamb, and they confiscated the prisoners’ material. That particular draconian administration was replaced with a more enlightened group, Lamb reports, one that allowed for the rehabilitative value of writing. These works radiate what Lamb saw as the program’s critical mission: to give the women wings “to hover above the confounding maze of their lives, and from that perspective…to see the patterns and dead ends of their past, and a way out.” Some of the stories are rueful, others bitter, but all bite, even—perhaps especially—when they are gentle. None are self-pitying, but none shy away from speaking directly to the gross cruelties so often inflicted on their early years or young marriages. Each story, no matter how grim or gritty, shows polish, and the women display a wide array of emotions: unbridled anger, innocence, hope, resigned acceptance. While a few of the stories speak of angels who touched the women’s lives, most display open wounds that are continuing to be healed by the cathartic power of words.

Writing as an act of self-realization and liberation and, not incidentally, an indictment of the penal system.