A Grip of Time

When Prison Is Your Life

By: Lauren Kessler

Narrated by: Hollis McCarthy

A Grip of Time (prison slang for a very long sentence behind bars) takes listeners into a world most know little about - a maximum-security prison - and into the minds and hearts of the men who live there. These men, who are serving out life sentences for aggravated murder, join a fledgling Lifers' Writing Group started by award-winning author Lauren Kessler. Over the course of three years, meeting twice a month, the men reveal more and more about themselves, their pasts, and the alternating drama and tedium of their incarcerated lives. As they struggle with the weight of their guilt and wonder if they should hope for a future outside prison walls, Kessler struggles with the fiercely competing ideas of rehabilitation and punishment, forgiveness and blame that are at the heart of the American penal system.

Gripping, intense, and heartfelt, A Grip of Time: When Prison Is Your Life shows what a lifetime with no hope of release looks like up close.

©2019 Lauren Kessler (P)2019 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

fascinating and insightful

This was an incredible book. Loved the humanity of it. I hope there are future books of inmate stories.

Everyone should read about the lives behind bars

I couldn’t stop reading (listening) once I started. We have a love affair in this country with punishing people - I’m not saying there shouldn’t be accountability. This book gives insight into a few lives being lived by men serving life in prison. Before we are asked as voters about crime or serving on juries, we need to understand what we are being asked to do. Excellent writing.