Orange Is the New Black

stepped out. We were on an empty side street, a canyon between the fortress and some office buildings, with a slice of gray sky above us. Homie’s people were waiting directly across the street in an SUV, and he broke for the car like a jackrabbit and was gone.
    I looked around.
    “Isn’t anyone coming to get you?” asked the guard.
    “Yeah!” I said, impatient. “Where
are
we?”
    “I’ll take you around to the front,” he said, reluctant.
    I turned and started walking briskly ahead of him. Ten yards farther, and I saw Larry, standing in front of the MCC, talking on his phone, until he turned and saw me. And then I was running, as fast as I could. No one could stop me.

Acknowledgments

    Most of all, I would like to thank my husband, Larry Smith, whose ferociously stubborn love sustains me and without whom I would not have written this book. I’d also like to thank the women of the Danbury FCI, and the other prisons I traveled through, because they changed my life.
    I am deeply grateful for the love and support of my mother, father, and brother and all of my family, and to Carol and Lou and the entire Smith family.
    Thanks to my agent, Stuart Krichevsky, for his belief in this project, his patience, and his hard work, and to Shana Cohen, Danielle Rollins, and Shari Smiley. Thank you to my incredible editor, Julie Grau, who always understood the book I wanted to write and challenged me to make it so much better; and to Cindy Spiegel, Laura Van der Veer, Hana Landes, Steve Messina, Donna Sinisgalli, Christopher Sergio, Rachel Bernstein, London King, Avideh Bashirrad, and the great team at Spiegel & Grau and Random House.
    Special thanks to my best friend, Kristen Grimm, who knows every step of the journey recounted in this book and has never stopped helping me through it. To my readers Trish Boczkowski, David Boyer, Robyn Crawford, and Ellen DeLaRosa, I say thank you each for your unique help and counsel.
    I’m grateful to each and every person who wrote me letters, sent me books, and helped me in so many other ways while I was inprison; the enormous kindness of friends and strangers is humbling. I especially would like to thank Earl Adams, Zoe Allen, Kate Barrett, Michael Callahan, Jeff Cranmer, Cheryl Della Pietra, Gabriella DiFilippo, Dave Eggers, Arin Fishkin, Victor Friedman, John Garrison, Noah Hatton, Liz Heckles, Steve Huggard, Joe Loya, Kirk and Susan Meyer, Leonid Oliker, Julie Oppenheimer, Ed Powers, Brie Reeder, Ted Rheingold, Kris Rosi and the Rosi family, Jon Schulberg, Shannon Snead, Tara Stiles, Ty Wenger, Penelope Whitney, Kelly Wyllie, and Sam Zalutsky.
    Huge thanks to my defense attorney, Patrick J. Cotter, and to my other legal eagles, Dave Corbett, Wallace Doolittle, and Eric Hecker.
    Tim Barkow, the creator of www.thepipebomb.com , is a kind friend and generous tech genius. Thank you to my friend and enthusiastic photographer, John Carnett.
    Returning to the workforce after prison is a daunting proposition. Thank you for the generosity and the warm welcome of Dan Hoffman and the entire M5 team. Thanks also to my enthusiastic and bighearted colleagues at Spitfire Strategies.
    Without the generous hospitality of Jean Brennan and Zach Rogers, Paul and Erica Tullis, and Liz Gewirtzman, this book would probably not have been written. And thank you to the entire Above and Beyoncé crew for tireless cheerleading and well-timed diversions.
    To all of these people, I am so very grateful.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    P IPER K ERMAN is a vice president at a Washington, D.C.–based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in Brooklyn.

Copyright © 2010 by Piper Kerman
    All rights reserved.
    Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
    S PIEGEL & G RAU and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
    Grateful acknowledgment is made to Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Anthem,” written by Leonard Cohen, © 1992 Stranger Music Inc. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.
    LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Kerman, Piper.
Orange is the new black: my year in a women’s prison / Piper Kerman.
p.    cm.
eISBN: 978-0-385-53026-2
1.Federal Correctional Institution (Danbury, Conn.)