Because most real prison inmates often actually do have the same type of family dramas again and again, as verified by outside family members and described by researchers and journalists. Stereotypical, you may be indignantly thinking? Absolutely. Most have ADHD, or learning disabilities, or personality disorders. Most had many many many ‘homes’, their parents moving a lot. Most have four children, and a couple of divorces/separations or several true-love relationships before they were convicted of crimes and imprisoned. Plus, excessive reliance on ignorant passed-around social and family tropes and beliefs, without examination or educated knowledge. They clearly did not read much before being incarcerated - I can tell, as probably most Goodreads members can when meeting new people - lack of perspective and introspection being the primary clues, especially when these women were in their teens. Most of the women dropped out of high school, primarily because they hated school. All of them were deserted by the fathers of their children. All of the women were involved with a boy or a man in a sexual relationship before age sixteen, feeling it was true love. Most of the women had been raped before age twelve, several by dads, stepdads, or adult friends of the family. Dads almost never provided any funding or time for their kids, despite their claims of eternal love of family and their significant other.Īctions speak louder than words, parents. In reality dads, and some moms, acted either with constant punitive violence or selfishness, and often both. Sex education appears to be non-existent, being limited to parental threats without any explanations or efforts to give their daughters birth control. Dads generally did not act as if they loved their kids despite their stated vows of deep affection and honorable intentions. Some of the incarcerated women also worked outside the home before their convictions, holding down jobs. Generally the moms of the imprisoned writers worked hard at either outside jobs and/or at trying to guide their kids without much ability, time or knowledge about talking to their kids. Some of the prisoners claim to love their own, generally numbering about four, kids.
Some of the writers' parents supposedly loved their, generally in number, four kids, some totally didn't. Their writings are edited, but unfortunately the real lives of these women were not.Ĭhildhood traumas, mostly because of shit parents, even if those parents didn’t mean to be terrible. They come from the underclass and the middle-class. 'Couldn't Keep It To Myself' by Wally Lamb is a sad book of short autobiographical stories written by eleven imprisoned women attending a memoir-writing class. Lamb currently lives in Mansfield, Connecticut with his wife, Christine Lamb, and their three sons, Jared, Justin and Teddy. He has edited two collections of autobiographical essays entitled Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters (2003) and I'll Fly Away (2007). Lamb has served as a volunteer facilitator for a writing workshop at the York Correctional Institute, a maximum-security prison for women, in Niantic, Connecticut since 1999.
in English from the University of Connecticut and an M.F.A.
#COULDN T KEEP IT TO MYSELF FREE#
He was the director of the Writing Center at the Norwich Free Academy, Norwich, Connecticut from 1989-1998, and an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Connecticut’s English Department. Lamb is the recipient of the Connecticut Center for the Book's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Connecticut Bar Association's Distinguished Public Service Award, the Connecticut Governor's Art Award, the Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award, the 1999 New England Book Award for Fiction, and the Missouri Review William Peden Fiction Prize. Two were featured as selections of Oprah's Book Club. Wally Lamb is the author of She's Come Undone, The Hour I First Believed, and I Know This Much Is True.
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