Living in two worlds

Part 2 in a series

During the second meeting of the Inspired Readers book club at the Wilkinson County, Mississippi Correctional Facility, a member complained that someone had stolen two of his books, and asked if it would be possible to get replacement copies.

“I really wanted to keep those books,” he said.

Of course, I said, the books can be replaced. It then occurred to me that someone stealing books was in a weird way an affirmation. Thievery is common in prison, but the theft of books seemed to represent a legitimate, if misguided desire.

The purloined novels were Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give and its prequel Concrete Rose, which chronicle the lives of African Americans dealing with racism, gangs and police killings, all of which are familiar territory for the book club members.

The club, whose membership has varied from seven to a theoretical 15 (other members had so far not been able to attend due to staffing issues), were in the midst of discussing The Hate U Give under a previous facilitator, but had not yet finished it when the prison went into lockdown in May 2024. It is unclear what prompted the lockdown, which is a wholesale interruption of inmate activities typically brought on by a disruptive event or a staff shortage.

The lockdown coincided with my predecessor’s departure, and as a result, The Hate U Give had remained on the table for several months. So, we picked it back up during my first and second meetings, after which the consensus was that the club members were ready to move on to a new book. I had compiled a list of several titles for them to choose from, by a vote, which is standard prison book club procedure. The Mississippi Humanities Council, which sponsors the prison book club program, had provided a long list of titles that other clubs have read or were suggested as potential choices, and I had added a few of my own.

Hosting the Inspired Readers club is thought provoking in many ways, but coming up with the proposed list presented an interesting question: What books might I want to read if I were facing a life behind bars? It was a variation of the old “what would you take with you to a desert island?” The classics? Self-help? Adventure stories? The point was to liberate your mind from the mental and emotional claustrophobia of prison.

Among the titles I proposed were Tribe, by Sebastian Junger, a nonfiction book that explores how humans form groups, which seemed appropriate for men whose worlds, both before and after incarceration, were graphically defined by such choices; To Kill a Mockingbird, which, it turned out, they had already read; my own nonfiction book Mississippi in Africa, which I included because it would give them an opportunity to directly engage with the author of a work they were reading; Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven, a post-apocalyptic novel about a group of wanderers during a global pandemic; and Percival Everett’s James, a revisiting of the story behind Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the vantage point of Jim, the enslaved man who accompanies the eponymous character on his Mississippi River raft trip. One member asked that we add Fahrenheit 451, another dystopian novel, by Ray Bradbury, about a future American society where books have been outlawed. No one bought into that last one aside from me and the guy who proposed it.

I provided a brief summary of each book and polled the members for their preferences. The vote ended in a tie between Station Eleven and James. There were eight members in the day’s meeting, and three cast votes for each book, with two members saying they were fine with either one. A brief discussion ensued, and afterward I asked the two uncommitted members to break the tie. They made different selections, which left us tied again. After further discussion, the group voted unanimously for Station Eleven. One factor may have been that a member noted it had been made into a limited series on TV, which he had seen and liked. The members also knew a bit about dystopia and were of course mindful of the recent pandemic. They were interested in a new literary take on both.

My suggestion that they might want to read Mississippi in Africa had fallen flat. Not a single member voted for it, nor did anyone have questions about it. The thought occurred to me that this was perhaps because it was my book -- that it was too early in our relationship for anyone to essentially endorse me as an author. I was still a largely unknown entity, an older white dude, likely a transient presence. Yet later, after someone asked a random question about the book, another lengthy discussion ensued, which led to their decision to read Mississippi in Africa after Station Eleven.

Lengthy discussions are common in the club and are always illuminating. The group often focuses on the repercussions of decisions that fictional characters make. As men who typically face lengthy prison sentences for violent crimes, they have plenty of time to ruminate on such things. One member noted that the teenaged protagonist of The Hate U Give, whose name is Starr, inhabits two worlds: Her racially oppressed African American community and the comparatively privileged, predominantly white private school that she attends. Thus, the idea of different worlds entered the discussion.

“She has to code-switch,” one member observed. “We all have to do that sometimes. It’s like when you’re going to your grandma’s house.”

The later discussion of Mississippi in Africa was prompted by another member’s observation that inmates, like Starr, know two worlds: one inside and one outside prison. People on the outside often miscast the incarcerated, the member said. Branton Lewis, who oversees the prison’s education program, and who sat in on part of the meeting, observed that he sometimes has to address prejudice toward prisoners among the general population outside the jail. Everyone focuses on the perceived dangers he faces while working in a maximum-security prison, he said, and rarely on the fact that the prisoners are trying to better themselves and are in many ways like them.

This prompted me to recall having made just such a misguided judgment during my research for Mississippi in Africa. I had grossly mischaracterized the Africans around me in the war-torn Liberian capital when I found myself the only white person on the streets during a civil war, fearful that everyone saw me as a target. Later, a local man had told me that people were actually attracted to me because I represented a positive sign. Whenever the situation grew dire in Monrovia, the white people quickly vanished, he said. My appearance was interpreted as a sign that the situation was improving. I had seen myself as essentially wandering a vast, menacing African ghetto, when in reality I was among a million people who were struggling to find any sign of hope.

“You were like Starr’s boyfriend,” one club member volunteered, referencing a supporting character in The Hate U Give who is the lone white person to attend a violent protest over a police killing. I was a proxy, which seemed to convey a measure of cred.

This club member is given to long, often brilliant commentary, and his pithy assessment of the scene in Liberia prompted a discussion of Mississippi in Africa. He had many questions and spoke at length about the topics that I described writing about. He then launched into an inspired monologue about the power of books. When he finished, I said, “You should have your own podcast.”

Though I do not query the club members about their crimes, I have researched them and they occasionally weave certain details into their observations about books. This member had mentioned that his brother was killed in a gang shooting, and that both he and another brother had subsequently gone to prison. This was the black Avenger episode mentioned in a previous What Happened post.

“My mother lost three sons,” he said. The lesson he learned was in keeping with one of his key takeaways from The Hate U Give: “She should have listened to her parents.” More than most book clubs, this group tends to treat each book the members read as a sort of flesh-and-blood morality play.

Because this member and several others were intrigued by the podcast idea, I told them about a podcast that originates from California’s San Quentin prison called “Ear Hustle,” the latest episode of which focuses on the importance of books in prison. Ear Hustle -- the name a reference to a prison term for eavesdropping -- has been wildly successful and spawned a nonfiction book of its own, This is Ear Hustle. The idea prompted the black Avenger member to respond: “I want us to be the first prison book club in Mississippi to do this.”

All eyes turned toward Lewis, who said he would run the podcast idea past his superiors. Both the private company that runs the prison and the Mississippi Department of Corrections would have to approve it, after which we would need to figure out the logistics, but it seemed to be worth pursuing. It would go a long way toward bridging the gap between the worlds inside and outside the prison, and no doubt the club members would benefit from having their submerged voices heard. Plus, who would not want to listen to inmates talking about books? These were guys who enjoyed reading and, in many cases, were also interested in telling stories. So far, two of them had expressed a desire to write.

The book club meetings are supposed to last an hour, but the first one had continued for an hour and a half and the second went for two hours. Even then, it was hard to bring it to a close.

That night, as I began rereading Station Eleven, I noticed that it came across as an entirely different book against the backdrop of the Wilkinson prison book club. Though we had not yet discussed it, the members’ perspectives inevitably filtered in.

I have a habit of judging people by whether I would want them in my post-apocalyptic tribe, a practice that originated while I was traveling in the Liberian conflict zone. Imagining my choices, I realized that some people who might seem attractive could turn out to be liabilities, while some who were off-putting could potentially come in handy. I would want a gardener, and someone who was extremely observant, and someone who was a good shot. There would also be a place for a certain remarkably efficient yet notably sullen cashier at Kroger, and for a few violent thugs.

This winnowing of critical allies is a theme of Station Eleven. I wondered how the book club members would go about choosing members for their own tribe and decided this would be my lead-in question at the next meeting.

On the day of our planned third meeting, I was notified shortly before that the prison had once again gone into lockdown. This was a disappointment, for me and no doubt for the club members, who I knew would have interesting insights into Station Eleven that they would be eager to share. Plus, who knew how long the lockdown would last? The last one had stretched out for several months. So, I was relieved to hear the following Monday that the lockdown had ended. We are now scheduled to resume this coming Friday.

As St. John Mandel writes in Station Eleven, one of the initial trials that followed the collapse of civilization was the elimination of orderly discussions that enabled people of different backgrounds to compare notes. After the fall, she writes, “No more reading and commenting on the lives of others, and in so doing, feeling slightly less alone in the room.”

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Image: A sapling grows beyond a prison fence, via Pixabay