The Midnight Special

 The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music by Colin Asher, 336 pages, © 2026

This was a great book, just nominated as a finalist for a National Book award. At first glance it seems like this might be a book about great albums inspired by prison but it's actually more of a mediation on policing and incarceration in America and how those systems influence and gatekeep artistic expression. Asher narrows the focus down to five artists, each from a different time period and genre, diving into each person's background and how they came to be ensnared in the carceral system--with the exception of Johnny Cash. Cash's story is the middle of the book as an intentional counterpoint to the other stories as it may surprise readers to learn that he spent less then a week in jail his entire life. Unlike artists like Tupac and Leadbelly, who were forced to rely on their criminal public personas to book performances and sell records, Cash was not beholden to his outlaw persona, despite having similar personal problems as the others in this book--he could always pivot to something else, like supporting Native American rights or singing gospel music--black artists often did not have that luxury. Elmo Hope was an incredible jazz pianist who fell into drugs and, because of New York City's insane Cabaret Card law (which was a legal way of criminalizing black jazz musicians), spent time in Riker's Island, where he recorded an album with the prison band. Perhaps the most unknown artist in the book is Ike White, the only one actually guilty of committing a violent crime. His natural talents as a musician were enough to attract the attention of larger celebrities who were invested in the prison reform movement of the 60s and 70s. He used that interest to help him  record an album in prison, which is now considered a lost soul record. Highly recommended. 

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham (2022), 352 pages 

After reading Sarah's review, I wanted to check this book out. It follows Carlotta on her brief parole stint as she rediscovers the world she was forced to leave behind twenty odd years ago. It is told through both first- and third-person narrative that can be a bit disjointing at first, but you will get into the swing of it. Overall, I enjoyed the book and Carlotta's surprisingly optimist look on life despite the unjust and horrifying things that have happened to her. My only quibble is sometimes I felt Carlotta was a just a bit to prescient about today's issues, especially for someone who has been locked away for such a long time. 

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta

Didn't Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta by James Hannaham, 352 pages

During the day and a half after her parole, we follow a wrongfully-incarcerated Trans woman as she comes home to find Brooklyn, friends and family, and herself changed over the last 20 years. The story is told in a mix of third-person narration and Carlotta’s inner monologue. What makes this book work is that Carlotta absolutely has a heart of gold! Her wise-cracks led me to spew water on my steering wheel when listening to the audiobook in one case. You will love Carlotta’s hopefulness, but this is by no means a saccharine-sweet book. I have the lowest tolerance for cheesiness of just about any reader I know, and this book passed that test with flying colors. I recommend DNGASWHTC if you want something gritty but not brutal.

The River is Waiting

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb (2025), 466 pages 

This is a tough read. Corby is struggling as a husband and father. He recently lost his job and is sliding into alcohol and drug addiction. Through his own actions, he causes a family catastrophe and ends up in prison. The novel follows his journey through prison, personal reckoning, and family reconciliations. It is a hard, sad story and not the book to read if you aren't in a mentally decent place.

The Prison Healer

 

The Prison Healer by Lynette Noni  416 pp.

Kiva Meridan is the healer at the notorious Zalindov Prison. She inherited the position from her father who died during an epidemic when she was just a child. The prison is a gory place and Kiva does what she can for the injured and sick. When the Rebel Queen is captured and brought to the prison, Kiva is charged with keeping the seriously ill woman alive but only until she dies during the Trial by Ordeal, a four part challenge involving the elements of Air, Fire, Water, and Earth to which only the most dangerous criminals are sentenced. She receives a message from her family which reads "Don't let her die. We are coming." Kiva volunteers to take on the trials in the Rebel Queen's place (shades of Hunger Games). But she also has a fatal epidemic among the prison community to contend with along with the Rebel prisoners who are against her. This isn't a bad story but it drags on too long. There are two more books in the series and I have no desire to continue this story. I listened to the audiobook which probably is the only reason I finished it.

Decline and Fall

 Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh 293 pp.

Paul Pennyfeather gets expelled from his Oxford college through no fault of his own but that didn't matter to the powers that be. He ends up taking a teaching position at a boys boarding school with no experience in the teaching field, one being a chronic liar. That doesn't matter because no one else working there is any better at it than Pennyfeather is. The school is a marvelous parody of British public schools (what we call private). The antics of the staff rival the antics of the students, rowdy and mostly harmless, except in the case of young Tangent, whose minor injury during games day grows gangrenous and ultimately deadly. Pennyfeather becomes entangled with Mrs. Beste-Chetwynde, the widowed mother of one of the students. On the day of their wedding, while attempting to fix a business problem for his future wife, Pennyfeather is arrested. His conviction lands him a five year sentence in prison. Other of the teachers at the school have similar bad ends, including suicide, a conviction for bigamy, and various financial misfortunes. Although Pennyfeather eventually comes out okay the ending is left open to wonder what else can befall him as he studies to become a minister. This is Waugh's first published novel and is a wonderful satire of parts of British society in the 1920s.  

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian (2022) 333 pages

Marian, the Duchess of Clare, turned out to have married a mean dude. The Duke had already married a couple other women and was apparently still married to them. The first Marian learns of this is when she receives a letter asking for 500 pounds to keep the Duke's bigamy a secret. After a lively correspondence with the blackmailer, she tracks him down, drugs him and ties him up in a room in a public house. Then later, when she shoots the Duke, in order to save an adult son of his (by a different wife), she ends up returning to the blackmailer to ask for help escaping into the country, to lie low at the home of her senile father until she finds out if she'll be charged with murder.

The book is a lively adventure of these two souls ‒ Rob, the blackmailer with a soft spot for children and kittens, and Marian, a young woman who has learned not to trust anyone and who isn't afraid to do what needs to be done.

I would characterize this book as a Robin Hood-like adventure set in old days but with modern language, and a good measure of sex thrown in. Definitely a fast read.

X

X: A Novel by Ilyasah Shabazz and Kekla Magoon  348 pp.

This is an award winning novelized biography of the man who would become Malcolm X. Written by one of his daughters and based on Malcolm Little/El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz's diaries and interviews with friends and family. The book covers his childhood through the teen years to his imprisonment for burglary at age 21 where he converted to Islam and studied the works of men like Marcus Garvey who his parents followed. Appended material expands on his life after prison and his work with the Nation of Islam which he left to create the Organization for African-American Unity. This YA novel is interesting and I learned much about Malcolm X that I did not know. And it fulfilled the last title I needed for the 2019 A to Z Book Challenge. I downloaded the book via Overdrive.

The hold

The hole / Jose Revueltas, translated by Amanda Hopkinson & Sophie Hughes, 77 pgs.

When you are in prison, in "the hole" you can only see out a small slit in the door.  This is an account of the view and the wait.  Visitors are coming, the promise of drugs being sneaked in has everyone in anticipation.  Everyone needs a hit soon.  They are experiencing withdrawal symptoms.  Will the drugs make it through inspection? Nothing to do but wait and watch. This work has been recently translated into English.  It is something you read and experience the story in real time.  Kind of stunning in its simplicity and depth.

The care and feeding of ravenously hungry girls

The care and feeding of ravenously hungry girls / Anissa Gray, read by January LaVoy, Bahni Turpin, Dominic Hoffman, and Adenrele Ojo 294 pgs.

The Butler family is sooo dysfunctional.  Which makes for great reading.  Oldest sister Althea and her husband Proctor find themselves jailed for fraud, their twin teenage daughters adrift. Sister Viola is relapsing with her eating disorder after breaking up with her girlfriend.  Lillian is 36, parents dead and no kids of her own but finds herself fully engaged in the "sandwich generation" as she is caring for her nieces and her ex-grandmother-in-law.  Brother Joe is still kind of a jerk but took over his dad's preaching business.  Yes, they all have issues.  Yes, there is a family crisis.  Will they come together?  or will they scatter?  Well written and realistic, the audio version enhances the story thanks to an excellent cast of narrators.

The Mars Room

The Mars Room / Rachel Kushner, 338 pgs. read by the author

The Mars Room is a seedy strip club in San Francisco.  Romy Hall, a stripper known as Vanessa is the main character in this book.  She is serving a couple of life sentences for killing a man who stalked her.  She is flawed as is the justice system that ignores her circumstances and provides only an overworked public defender to decide her fate.  Romy's story is not the only one we hear. There are fellow prisoners, staff, some people whose connection is not obvious to me.  Everyone is quirky and interesting with a unique story.  I think the book makes clear there isn't an easy way to classify the people, their situations and the circumstances that bring them to the novel.  At first I was unsure of the author reading this book but ended up enjoying the audio version very much. The voice of Romy comes through very convincingly.

The Mars Room

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner, 338 pages.
Kushner was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2013 for The Flamethrowers. Her newest book is quite different but does a great job of showing her range and in maybe showing that she is very good at whatever she sets out to do. From the very first page Romy Hall is going to tell the reader and her fellow inmates only so much. If you want to know her story or anyone's story here at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility then you have to be patient. Romy tells her story slowly, going back and forth between the now of prison life, and her time before prison, her life growing up in San Francisco and then the events that led to her incarceration. Romy and her fellow prisoners have all suffered abuse to varying degrees, but they are not claiming victimhood. Romy killed her stalker. Button was only fourteen when she and two companions killed a man during an attempted robbery. Conan and Teardrop, Betty and Doc, and many other characters have their interesting stories told. All in all it is a very good book with some odd little flaws. Rights are "waved" instead of "waived." The unabomber manifesto confused me, too.

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward (2017) 289 pages

Sing, Unburied, Sing is told from different perpectives: that of Jojo, a 13-year-old boy; Leonie, his drug-addicted mother; and also of Richie, a boy that Jojo's grandfather had met decades ago when they'd both been inmates at Parchman, a prison/farm camp, as teenagers. Richie died at Parchman. Parchman is the same prison that Jojo's own father is doing time at, and he is due to be released.

Leonie brings her children, Jojo and his toddler-aged sister, on an overnight road trip to pick up their father from prison. Jojo doesn't want to go, and it's clear that his grandfather doesn't want the children to go either, since Leonie has made a career out of selfishness. The road trip up to the northern part of Mississippi in the old Nova, accompanied by a white friend of Leonie's, is unpleasant. Leonie stops for refreshments a few times, but never thinks about getting anything for her children. There's also a stop to buy drugs, and soon after that, Jojo's little sister gets very sick. Oh, and along with picking up Jojo's father, another being hitches a ride back with them--Richie's ghost, who insists he needs to speak with Jojo's grandfather. Meanwhile, back at home, Leonie's mother is dying of cancer, and one starts to wonder if her impending death will jolt Leonie into caring for her children.

Sing is a haunting novel that kept compelling me to go back to reread passages to savor, to try to understand them better.

The Best Kind of People

The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall, 430 pages

When a high school teacher is arrested, accused by four students of sexual misconduct on a class ski trip, his life and the lives of his family are turned completely upside down. The author transports the reader delicately into the evolving points of view of  his wife, adult son, and high school-aged daughter. We see how the crisis changes relationships within and outside the family. Like his family, I kept wondering whether to believe the man or his accusers. Whittall's novel, published in 2016, evokes the #MeToo movement that has lately resonated through our society.
  

Sing, Unburied, Sing

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward, 289 pages.
I remember reading Salvage the Bones a couple of times and thinking what a great, sad book it was. We had discussed this book, and I enjoyed that too. This year's Christmas present book, though it's not really a celebration.
With the ghosts of children sacrificed to avoid greater horror, and the memory and repitition, Ward channels and echoes Toni Morrison in this great tragedy. Award winning and awesome.