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Kruzan, Sara. I Cried To Dream Again: Trafficking, Murder, and Deliverance—A Memoir. Pantheon. May 2022. 192p. ISBN 9780593315880. $27. Downloadable. MEMOIR

At age 17, Kruzan murdered the pimp who had forced her into sex work and abused her between the ages of 11 and 16. With information about her abuse inadmissible at her trial, she was sentenced to life in prison. A 2009 Human Rights Watch video brought attention to her case, and she was released after serving 19 years and seven months in prison. She now works as an advocate for survivors like her, and her efforts have paid off. Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) has introduced a bill in Congress known as Sara’s Law that would allow federal judges to impose reduced sentencing for survivors of juvenile sex trafficking, abuse, and assault who commit crimes against their abusers.

Lucky, Antong. A Redemptive Path Forward: From Incarceration to a Life of Activism. Counterpoint. May 2022. 224p. ISBN 9781640095342. $26. MEMOIR

Growing up in poverty-stricken East Dallas, TX, with his father incarcerated and use of crack cocaine and heroin on the rise, Lucky was a strong student but was pulled into the orbit of gang life. In the early 1990s, he formed the Dallas Bloods gang, riding a wave of illegal drug sales and retaliatory gun violence until his arrest and imprisonment. In prison, he renounced his gang affiliation and sought to unite rival gangs, and since his early release he has focused on mentoring Black men and boys, bridging the gap between community and police, and developing and launching violence-reduction strategies, criminal justice reform, and reentry initiatives for formerly incarcerated people.

Related Reading

Adams, Jarrett. Redeeming Justice: From Defendant to Defender, My Fight for Equity on Both Sides of a Broken System. Convergent: Crown. Sept. 2021. 304p. ISBN 9780593137819. $27. MEMOIR

Convicted by an all-white jury at age 17 of a crime he didn’t commit and finally exonerated with the help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project after multiple appeals and 10 years in prison, Adams subsequently earned a Juris Doctorate from Loyola University Chicago School of Law. He argued his first case with the Innocence Project, standing before the same court that had convicted him years previously.

Adayfi, Mansoor. Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo. Hachette. Aug. 2021. 336p. ISBN 9780306923869. $28. MEMOIR

Having left Yemen at age 18 for a cultural mission in Afghanistan, Adayfi was kidnapped, sold to the United States, and held without charges for 14 years at Guantánamo Bay. There he became known as Smiley Troublemaker, asserting himself by leading prison riots and hunger strikes. Released in 2016 and now an activist, he won the Richard J. Margolis Award for nonfiction writers of social justice journalism and is currently adapting this memoir for the Sundance Institute.

Hedges, Chris. Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison. S. & S. Oct. 2021. 272p. ISBN 9781982154431. $26.99. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Since 2013, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Hedges has taught drama, literature, philosophy, and history in the college degree program offered by Rutgers University at East Jersey State Prison. Here, he returns to his first class there, where 28 students read plays by authors including Amiri Baraka and August Wilson, then wrote scenes crafted over the years into a play. Called Caged, it is credited to the New Jersey Prison Theater Cooperative and expresses the inmates' suffering, frustrations, and dreams. In 2018, it had a sold-out run at Trenton's Passage Theatre and was published in 2020 by Haymarket Press.

Hylton, Donna with Kristine Gasbarre. A little Piece of Light: A Memoir of Hope, Prison, and a Life Unbound. Hachette. 2018. 272p. ISBN 9780316559256. $28. MEMOIR

Shuffled off to adoptive parents before she turned eight and taken from Jamaica to New York by an icily unappreciative mother and a sexually abusive father (she’s his “live-in child mistress”). Impregnated by a man who promised to help her as she’s on the verge of entering the prestigious boarding school she will never attend. Subject to a series of violent rapes. Struggling to raise her daughter when a coworker drags her into a mob scheme that leads to a wrongful conviction for kidnapping and second-degree murder. Hylton tells a shattering story, then shows how she put the pieces together in prison as she moved to help others: “My life is officially no longer about survival or doing what I have to do just to get by. … I am now part of something larger.” And so she remains after her release following 26-plus years behind bars. Astonishingly, this memoir isn't just a little sliver of light but fully glowing and radiant. 

Poor, Nigel & Earlonne Woods. This Is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life. Crown. Oct. 2021. 304p. ISBN 9780593238868. $28. SOCIAL SCIENCE

Poor, a white visual artist and photography professor at California State University, Sacramento, and Woods, a Black former inmate whose 31-year prison sentence was commuted by California Governor Jerry Brown in 2018, are cocreators and cohosts of the podcast Ear Hustle, a Pulitzer Prize finalist also nominated for Peabody honors. Woods is currently its full-time coproducer and also founded CHOOSE1, which aims to repeal the California Three Strikes Law under which he was sentenced. First created and produced entirely within San Quentin State Prison, the podcast allowed prisoners to share their thoughts and experiences about incarceration and the paths that led them there; it now tell post-incarceration stories as well. Here, the coauthors offer almost all-new stories (only two podcasts are excerpted) while framing these narratives with their own perspectives; with 40 original black-and-white illustrations.

Salaam, Yusef. Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice. S. & S. May 2021. 352p. ISBN 9781538705001. $28. MEMOIR

In 1989, at age 14, Salaam was one of five teenage boys sentenced to prison for assaulting a Central Park jogger, serving out their sentences before another inmate confessed to the crime and they were exonerated. Here, he speaks of his upbringing, imprisonment, and exoneration in what became a case of national importance while highlighting his belief that we're all "born on purpose, with a purpose" and his work as a prison reform and racial justice activist.

LJ is compiling a list of prison memoirs to accompany a 2022 feature on public library services to prisons. Send recommendations to bhoffert@mediasourceinc.com .

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