Description
Suburban raised and Ivy League educated, Amy Friedman is an American writer living in eastern Ontario, Canada. Her life seems charmed, and she writes a newspaper column about whatever she wishes& 014;life on the sheep farm she shares with her lover, a well-known famous writer; flying a Cessna; her journeys to South Africa, Northern Ireland and beyond. Then one day a local prison volunteer challenges her to write about the prisons that surround her adopted city.& ; & ; Prison is in her blood; her father both was a World War II prisoner of War, and she& 019;s always fought for the rights of those less fortunate than she. At a medium security penitentiary she meets dozens of prisoners, among them the chairman of the inmate committee: Will, a handsome, charming Lifer who turned down a college hockey scholarship to join a motorcycle gang. Now 38, he& 019;s serving year 7 of a 13 to Life sentence for murdering another drug dealer. And yes, he& 019;s guilty. But he& 019;s also one of the few men Amy trusts to tell him the truth about life inside, so when prison administrators tell her she can no longer talk to him, she doesn& 019;t listen. Her rebellion leads to her being expelled from the prison, and when her editors refuse to back her up and insist she be allowed to continue interviews, everything unravels.& ; & ; Before long friends and family and colleagues ostracize her as she falls in love with Will. Ultimately she marries him behind prison walls and becomes part of a world once entirely unknown to her. She raises Will& 019;s two daughters, Sarah and Cass who move in with her; she fights prison officials and politicians. She loses friends and becomes close to Canada& 019;s One Woman Army, writer and activist Claire Culhane. She shares time with her husband in prison trailers. And the fight takes seven years. At last they manage to earn Will his parole. & ; & ; But in his first 18 months outside, he disintegrates, and so does the marriage.
