... flaws and all, these couples feel real. The pat explanations for why women might start a relationship with a man in prison...may have some salience, but they are not the whole story. By taking this lens to the prison system, Greenwood also cracks open the absolute awfulness of this subworld—the greed of charging prisoners exorbitant fees to have any contact with loved ones; the exploitation of paying inmates $12 a month for full-time work, forcing women to shoulder the financial burden of caring for families; the constant humiliation that is the point, not the byproduct. As Greenwood explains, the way we do prisons in this country is not normal. Perhaps if we approached incarceration differently in America, we’d have a different understanding of the relationships that come out of it as well.
Sometimes Greenwood gets bogged down by digressions ... Most of the time, Greenwood handles...background well, getting back to the characters just when you’re missing them ... Even though I’ve had plenty of firsthand experiences with prison relationships, I didn’t know about any of these organizations. My experience and perspective were limited to my own plight ... I found one part of Greenwood’s book particularly troubling. She watches Met While Incarcerated, a Canadian documentary that dramatizes Benny’s crime—and then she starts second-guessing her own reportage ... when I found myself reading a book about couples who got to experience conjugal visits in prison, I expected the pages to reveal a bit more erotic heat. Yet I understand how adding spice could seem exploitative, too ... While Greenwood doesn’t delve into the intimacy of the flesh, she does come to a realization about the complicated intimacies of these relationships ... What she learns, and explains in beautiful prose, is that love can indeed be found in the ugliest of places.
An empathetic, detached portrait of five prison couples ... The overarching themes of the book are pain and the need for connection. Each of the incarcerated people portrayed, as well as their mates, has experienced serious trauma ... The book does an admirable job of showing that hope, like love, is a choice these partners make ... an engaging, informative, open-minded account of family dynamics that are often overlooked.
