Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison

Piper Kerman’s 2010 memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, chronicles the 13 months she spent in a federal women’s prison in Danbury, Connecticut. In 2013, Netflix adapted the memoir into an original series featuring the experiences of fictional character Piper Chapman. The memoir follows a linear timeline, starting with the crime Kerman unknowingly commits right after college, the process leading up to the sentencing, and her time in Danbury Women’s Prison. While the memoir is a straightforward account of Kerman’s prison experience, it is also a self-reflective work that reveals Kerman’s change of perspective regarding her thoughts and actions.

The memoir encompasses three sections: Kerman’s time with then-girlfriend “Nora” (based on Cleary Wolters) that led to her eventual arrest, her time with her fiancé Larry and her criminal sentencing, and her time served in Danbury. The narrative structure also reflects the themes of the US prison system’s injustice, racial and socio-economic divides, and community while in confinement. The narrative chronicles the events in Kerman’s life without flashbacks, and true to the memoir genre, Kerman recounts her experiences from the first-person perspective.