When Prison is Your Life.
“Dreams.” That’s the prompt I give them today. I’ve decided that rather than begin our sessions by launching into some “lesson” or discussion about writing, I should instead offer a single-word prompt, a chance for them to write extemporaneously and freely. I am hoping that these five or ten minutes of writing set a mood in the room that my own words, my “lesson” cannot. I am hoping to create an immediate and dramatic break between whatever they were doing and thinking about before they entered the room and what I’d like them to be thinking about now: stories and the power we have when we tell them. And, of course, I am hoping these free-form responses give me a window into their lives.
Gripping, intense and heartfelt, the book takes readers into the world of a maximum security prison--and into the hearts and minds of the men who live there.
The Reviews are In…
“What happens when hope is gone? A Grip of Time is the true-life story of a group of men sentenced to life in prison. They have gathered in a writing group, telling stories no one will ever hear. With a clear eye, Lauren Kessler writes of their journey—and her own. This is a devastating examination of guilt and remorse, of the unanswered questions of a nation that has pursued mass incarceration without even asking what justice means, or should be. Erased, vanished, haunted: this is a story not just about American prisoners, but of our country’s moral code.”
—Rene Denfeld, internationally bestselling author of The Child Finder
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With A Grip of Time, Lauren Kessler takes us on a compelling, intensely personal journey into the rarely glimpsed end point of our justice system.
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A Grip of Time is a beautiful, tender-hearted story of a group of prisoners for whom writing became their lifeline. Lauren Kessler avoids all the usual tropes in writing about prison, and has written a keenly observed and deeply felt narrative about what it means to be locked up for life. This book, so original and so compelling, took hold of me, and wouldn’t let me go. It was revelatory.
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A poignant work of narrative nonfiction…[a] compassionate account.
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I have long admired Lauren Kessler. Her latest book evinces unflinching sympathy for the incarcerated who would lift and transform themselves through writing their stories.
