Product Details
Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett

Life on the Outside: The Prison Odyssey of Elaine Bartlett
By Jennifer Gonnerman

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Product Description

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."

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #476041 in Books
  • Published on: 2005-02-01
  • Released on: 2004-12-09
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 368 pages

Features

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
A Village Voice staff writer's feature-turned-book about the impact of the Rockefeller drug laws on one family, this narrative begs comparison with last year's bestselling Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx. Like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Gonnerman has obviously done her homework. The story of Elaine Bartlett, a first offender sentenced to a staggering 16 years for drug trafficking, and the fate of her four children both during and after her incarceration, is told in encyclopedic detail, sometimes to a fault-including the entire texts of many letters, minutiae of clothing and even full grocery lists. Unlike LeBlanc's graceful prose, Gonnerman's style is utterly artless, occasionally to the point of awkwardness. But Gonnerman makes an excellent argument for the ways in which the New York criminal justice system, particularly the "tough on crime" measures imposed in the last three decades, fails poor and less educated people. She skillfully uses Bartlett, a tough, assertive woman who struggles to hold a job and keep her family together after their enforced years of separation, as an exemplar of the wide-ranging impact of incarceration on both ex-cons and the communities they leave behind, a social problem just beginning to be studied. This book takes its place as part of a current broad reconsideration of the war on drugs and the unprecedented prison-industrial complex it has created in America.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
For two and a half years, journalist Gonnerman shadowed recently released prisoner Elaine Bartlett, providing an intimate glimpse into the multiple difficulties associated with attempting to reassimilate into a society that is ill-prepared and often unwilling to assist ex-convicts. Convicted under the unforgiving Rockefeller drug laws, first-time offender Bartlett served 16 years in prison for selling cocaine. Attempting to reconnect with her four children, find a job, and acquire decent housing were all herculean tasks for the undereducated yet fiercely determined Bartlett. Although undeniably attached to her subject, Gonnerman nevertheless paints a fairly objective portrait of both her strengths and her failings as she struggles to overcome and conquer societal pressures and expectations. Refreshingly and bluntly honest, Bartlett eventually achieves a personal triumph when she becomes an eloquent activist campaigning against the brutally harsh drug laws that dictated her lengthy sentence. Guaranteed to raise both eyebrows and awareness, this powerful testament to tenacity raises important questions about this nation's inadequately funded and poorly designed reentry system for paroled inmates. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Bracingly compassionate, quietly outraged." -- The Village Voice

"Gonnerman illustrates these legal and social landmines by deftly blending Bartlett's personal journay with the policies that complicate ex-cons' lives." -- City Limits

"Gonnerman's book should [rank] among such classics as The Philadelphia Negro, Butterfield's All God's Children, and Stack's All Our Kin." -- Debra J. Dickerson, Mother Jones

"It's a story that grabs your interest and quickly boils your blood." -- Clark Brooks, The San Diego Union-Tribune

"Most of this moving...well-reported book deals with Elaine’s struggle to create a life for herself outside the prison walls." -- Brent Staples, The New York Times Book Review

"The book is hugely compelling...Gonnerman deserves credit for her sustained and thorough reporting." -- Jennifer Egan, The Nation

"The characters are so vivid you find yourself thinking about them even when you’re not immersed in the text." " -- Eleanor Bader, New York Law Journal

"[A] stirring and ultimately heartbreaking book on what it means to leave prison....[A] remarkably balanced triumph of immersion journalism." -- The Washington Post

Compulsively readable account of a life wasted by the war against drugs but later reclaimed...Powerful stuff, grievously well rendered. -- Kirkus Reviews

Customer Reviews

Extremely Artful--A Page Turner5
I almost passed this book by because one of the trade reviews called it "artless". What a tragedy that would have been. The same trade reviewer questioned the use of shopping lists and other minutia of detail.

As a school board director, I can tell you that the most salient things are these details- particularly the writing samples, the better the writing sample is for a particular family member, the better the outcome of their life. Coincidence? I do not think so. This is hard evidence that skills matter.

Elaine Bartlett worked hard on improving her skills in prison. The tragedy is that she was not there to be able to usher those same skills in her children because the system removed her form their lives.

This book is an indictment on the Rockefeller Drug Laws-well-meaning though they may have been, they are a social disaster. They have and are continuing to destroy families. Many of the judges who initially supported them, have reversed their opinion. It is time to adjust the law for the social realities-after all, the Supreme Court found that prevailing Community Standards should be the standard. The Rockefeller Drug Laws are an outlier in the scheme of social norms.

A Life Extraordinary!5
This book pulls you into the world of a woman who exposes every side of herself and her life - the good, not so good; tragic, and triumphant. It it a must read for any and everyone who is in human services, public policy, sociology...let's be real, for any and every human being. One does not have to totally identify with Ms. Bartlett to even learn and grow from this book. Ms. Gonnerman writes the book in "...words that we all can easily understand." moving one through so much information, one can not put it down....and the heroics of the people who were there for Ms. Bartlett! And her family! A testimony of true survival.

Great Read!

Excellent!5
This book actually blew my mind. I hadn't ever given much thought to our prison system. Bad people go to jail, right? Ms. Gonnerman has somehow been able to write a book that is fascinating, compelling, heart-breaking, infuriating, AND educational. I finished the book and immediately wanted more information about Elaine Bartlett and the status of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York. Fortunately, the author has also created a web site for those of us that want more information: http://www.lifeontheoutside.com.

I wish this book were required reading for all lawmakers, judges, lawyers, police and parole officers...