Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett-Fast Shipping

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Title: Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett

Author: Jennifer Gonnerman

ISBN: 9780312424572

Publisher: Picador

Published: 2004

Binding: Paperback

Language: English

Edition: Reprint

Condition Note: Excellent, unmarked copy with little wear and tight binding. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders.

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Life on the Outside tells the story of Elaine Bartlett, who spent sixteen years in Bedford Hills prison for selling cocaine–a first offense–under New York’s Rockefeller drug laws. The book opens on the morning of January 26, 2000, when Bartlett is set free and returns to New York City. At 42, she has virtually nothing: no money, no job, no real home.

All she does have is a large and troubled family, including four children, who live in a decrepit housing project on the Lower East Side. “I left one prison to come home to another,” Elaine says. Over the next months, she clashes with her daughters, hunts for a job, visits her son and husband in prison, negotiates the rules of parole, and campaigns for the repeal of the laws that led to her long prison term. Russell Simmons, founder of Def Jam Records, says: “At a time when the prison-industrial complex is destroying African American families and neighborhoods, Elaine Bartlett is more than a survivor: she is a heroine. The future of our communities depends on women like her.” Life on the Outside is a 2004 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.