Book Review: Orange is The New Black- A Memoir 
                                                                       by Piper Kerman.

A good read and an eye opener to those of us who have no clue or don't even care what goes behind prison walls. Piper Kerman cracks open the prison doors to reveal what goes behind bars through this memoir of hers. In her twenties, wanting some adventure Piper got involved with a woman who was in the business of drug smuggling. Little did Piper realized that the small part she played in the business would land her in the the prison ten years later. Even though she had severed all connection with the drug dealer friend for ten years and leading a professional life as a creative director for a web service, she got convicted and served thirteen months in the minimum security correctional facility for women in Danbury,Connecticut.

Blue eyed , blond haired and educated, Piper encountered stares and raised eyebrows questioning "what the hell are you doing here" when she first walked down the long main hall of the prison trying to make no eye contact. Soon, she learned that when a new prisoner arrived, their tribe-white, black,Latinos or the few and far between 'others' would immediately assess the situation, get them settled and steer them through the prison rules and rituals.

Piper takes us through her good, bad and challenging experiences in this thought provoking, well written, but slow moving memoir.  Surprised to find kindness and comradeship inside the prison camp made her to realize she had more in common with these women  dressed in khaki uniforms and heavy black work shoes

Many of the inmates were serving long term sentences for non-violent offences.Most of them were poor, poorly educated and came from neighborhoods where narcotic trade provided the most job opportunities. Some of them were serving eight to twelve years for low level offences like allowing their apartment for drug deals, passing messages and serving as couriers for low wages. Limited resource for defence and staggering caseload of Legal Aid Lawyers ended up putting these women for unjustified long term imprisonment.

Piper couldn't understand how long timers like her friend Natalie who served eight years kept her dignity and interact with grace in such a rotten place. The advice she received from many quarters was, "Do your time. Don't let the time do you." How could anyone be funny and mellow with an easy laugh under such dire condition? Piper writes that she needed to see things with a new perspective and learn survival techniques like some of her fellow inmates to make her prison life tolerable.

Skill wise too, Piper learned things which she wouldn't have bothered to learn in the free world outside. Since the prison facility is mainly run by inmates,everyone there is required to work and thus assigned to a job. She ended up working in the electric shop in Construction and Maintenance service. After being confined to the prison camp for a month,the bus ride to her work site made Piper happy.  If the women didn't have GED, they couldn't earn over fourteen cents an hour, which could barely pay for toothpaste and soap. It's out of their earned prison account they have to pay for phone calls, toiletry,fines etc. It saddened Piper to find her  bunk buddy Natalie who worked in the prison kitchen as a skilled baker for many years was never paid more than $ 5.60 for forty hours of work.

In Danbury, however Piper had the pleasure of participating in events like Halloween, Christmas, birthdays and send off parties for the fellow mates. With the minimum resources available, the women somehow creatively made cards, banners and posters and decorated the place and gifted hand made gifts like knitted or crocheted socks, slippers or  caps.
However when she was moved to the large Federal prison camp in Chicago before she was released,she found out that such events and send off parties were non-existent. She missed Danbury, specially her fellow inmates who would have given her a send off party and given her hugs amidst tears..
Piper knew that she had a loving family, a home to go back and an opportunity to land in a job when she got released. But it was not so with many of the prisioners. Though none of them wanted to comeback to prison again, several of them returned because the outside world barred them in so many ways from  integrating into the society. Because they had to put a check mark in the square marked for 'convicted' on job and rental apartment application forms, they ended up getting denied for a job or apartment. As such, many of the inmates  dreaded the approaching date of their release. Such scenario saddened Piper, who had come to know and admire the entrepreneurial spirit and strength of some of the women at Danbury.
I haven't yet seen the Netflix series of  Orange is The New Black. But I would recommend the book to be read first to get the true story.