Piper Kerman’s vivid memoir Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison is the inspiration for a new Netflix series which premieres on Thursday, July 11. And it looks amazingly moving and action-packed. Piper is played by Taylor Schilling and the cast is rounded out by Jason Biggs, Natasha Lyonne and Taryn Manning to name a few.
The novel which was printed in 2010 is a compelling, richly detailed, often hilarious, and unfailingly compassionate portrait of life inside a women’s prison, by a Smith College graduate who did the crime and did the time.
Endlessly fascinating, this chronicle of the author’s year at the infamous women’s federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, tells the story of a surprising community of women living under exceptional circumstances. In Orange Is the New Black, Piper Kerman tells the dramatic story of being locked up in a place with its own codes of behavior and arbitrary hierarchies, where a practical joke is as common as an unprovoked fight, and where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated. Revealing, moving, and enraging, Orange Is the New Black offers a unique perspective on the criminal justice system, the reasons we send so many people to prison, and what happens to them when they’re there.
Praise for Orange is 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. This book is not just a tale of prisons, drugs, crime, or justice; it is, simply put, a beautifully told story about how incredible women can be, and I will never forget it.”-Elizabeth Gilbert, New York Times
bestselling 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.com