A finely crafted, thoughtful look at the modern-day morass of America’s prison system.
McClintock and Soutter’s novel follows John Greaney, a psychotherapist working in Pennsylvania’s violent prison system.
After losing his job at a state mental hospital that was burned down by one of his patients, Greaney finds work in Pennsylvania’s rough and tough prison system. Mostly he’s at a maximum-security prison, though he also does a stint at a medium-security prison and visits others. The book starts with a bang—an ex-con confronts Greaney at a bar—and the action continues almost nonstop as he works with and fends off a variety of intimidating, crazy criminals ranging from murderers, rapists, and pedophiles to one or two inmates wrongfully convicted and imprisoned. Character studies here delve into the diversity of personalities—from the practically benign to the pathologically monstrous—and paint a bleakly dismal portrait of prison and its denizens as well as the difficult positions for prison psychotherapists. Often hated, gamed, or attacked by prisoners, they garner little sympathy from the guards who are supposed to protect them but who look upon them as naïve bleeding hearts. A proponent of blunt honesty and tough love, Greaney succeeds in counseling some prisoners but concludes that his job is futile. The work is making him as mad as his clients. He begins drinking heavily, gaining weight, and having violent fantasies; eventually, he seeks professional help. This gritty account of the cruel realities of modern American prison life is notable for its insightful character sketches and its detailed descriptions of prisons’ physical and emotional brutality, not to mention the blundering bureaucracy and the American public’s heedlessness. Sharply focused and tightly written, the book makes for a riveting read, though the authors can’t seem to decide whether prisons and prisoners can be reformed or are beyond redemption. Perhaps the conclusion is that American crime and punishment may be one more problem with no solution. But the novel presents a forceful case that America’s prison system is making the most incarcerated population on Earth worse rather than better, endangering not only prisoners, but those who work with them, not to mention the public at large.
A finely crafted, thoughtful look at the modern-day morass of America’s prison system.Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1500934132
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
At times slow-going, but the riveting period detail and dramatic flair eventually render this tale an animated history...
A murder that transfixed the world and the invention that made possible the chase for its perpetrator combine in this fitfully thrilling real-life mystery.
Using the same formula that propelled Devil in the White City (2003), Larson pairs the story of a groundbreaking advance with a pulpy murder drama to limn the sociological particulars of its pre-WWI setting. While White City featured the Chicago World’s Fair and America’s first serial killer, this combines the fascinating case of Dr. Hawley Crippen with the much less gripping tale of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention of radio. (Larson draws out the twin narratives for a long while before showing how they intersect.) Undeniably brilliant, Marconi came to fame at a young age, during a time when scientific discoveries held mass appeal and were demonstrated before awed crowds with circus-like theatricality. Marconi’s radio sets, with their accompanying explosions of light and noise, were tailor-made for such showcases. By the early-20th century, however, the Italian was fighting with rival wireless companies to maintain his competitive edge. The event that would bring his invention back into the limelight was the first great crime story of the century. A mild-mannered doctor from Michigan who had married a tempestuously demanding actress and moved to London, Crippen became the eye of a media storm in 1910 when, after his wife’s “disappearance” (he had buried her body in the basement), he set off with a younger woman on an ocean-liner bound for America. The ship’s captain, who soon discerned the couple’s identity, updated Scotland Yard (and the world) on the ship’s progress—by wireless. The chase that ends this story makes up for some tedious early stretches regarding Marconi’s business struggles.
At times slow-going, but the riveting period detail and dramatic flair eventually render this tale an animated history lesson.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 1-4000-8066-5
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
Apt tribute to family endurance in the face of grievous loss.
A wrenching tale of a notorious murder’s long echoes for its survivors.
Cummins terms her debut “both a true crime [story] and a memoir,” intending it to celebrate the lives of her young cousins, Julie and Robin Kerry, killed during a chance encounter in the summer of 1991. Traveling with her family from Washington, D.C., to vacation with relatives in St. Louis, Cummins ruefully recalls, “I thought I was tough.” On their last night in St. Louis, her older brother Tom snuck out with Julie and Robin; the rebellious 18-year-old rookie firefighter had developed a deep emotional bond with his cousins, both lovers of poetry and social justice. The trio went to the decrepit Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, where they ran into four local young men whose friendly demeanor quickly turned savage. The men beat Tom, raped Julie and Robin, then pushed all three into the raging Mississippi River. Only Tom survived, and his family’s horror was compounded when investigators inexplicably charged him with his cousins’ deaths. Tom was held for several grueling days before a flashlight found at the scene led authorities to the real killers, who quickly implicated one another. The least culpable accepted a 30-year plea; the others received death sentences. Identifying herself by her childhood nickname “Tink,” Cummins re-creates these dark events in an omniscient third-person narrative that lends the tale grim efficiency. Although her prose is occasionally purple (“Tink’s blood turned to ice and the room started to spin out from under her feet”), she succeeds overall in acquainting the reader with the horrific toll exacted by proximity to violence. The conclusion, which examines how the cruelest of the murderers became a cause célèbre thanks to his youth, offers astringent commentary on our society’s fascination with killers, who in media coverage often overshadow their victims. Cummins’s memoir does a good job of retrieving the lives of Julie and Robin from that obscurity.
Apt tribute to family endurance in the face of grievous loss.Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-451-21053-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2004
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