THE PRISON GUARD’S DAUGHTER

The daughter of a slain prison guard tells the story of her quest for truth, justice, and recompense for all prison worker families affected by the infamous 1971 Attica uprising.

Miller had just started first grade when her father was beaten by Attica rioters and left to die. His brutal, tragic death brought chaos to a once-happy family. The author began suffering from mysterious stomach problems, while her mother “was grieving herself while taking care of two young girls and a newborn.” Inevitably, Miller's family deflected most of the questions she later had about her father. She grew up knowing only that Attica prisoners were "monsters.” Meanwhile, everyone else regarded her with a maddening sympathy that suggested they “knew more about the death of our father than we did.” The lessons she learned in high school history class about Attica proved especially troubling in how they sympathized with prison rioters. It was this contradiction that led Miller to research the riots to learn what really happened to her father. For the next two decades, she followed the litigation that eventually ended in the late 1990s with damage awards to inmates Miller had held responsible for her father’s death. Outraged that Attica prison families had never received redress, the author co-founded the Forgotten Victims of Attica. As the leader of FVOA, she met with—and, to her surprise, later befriended—former inmate leaders who helped her understand that Attica prisoners and families were both victims of a state penal system bent on hiding the truth. Miller provides a welcome testimonial to the hardships suffered by Attica prison families and to the healing power of reconciliation. However, the drama inherent in the story and the narrative momentum suffer from redundant, pedestrian prose.

Miller’s courage and diligence are commendable, but the book is a dull treatment of an impassioned tale.