Orange really IS the new black (minor spoiler warning)

This autumn I, like millions of other people, binge-watched Netflix's hit new series Orange is the new Black. I love it.  Some of my friends hate it; I still don't understand why. This show is just so miraculous on so many levels: it sends me on a roller-coaster of emotions-- and I love when an artist (in any medium) can make me feel. And this show so celebrates women: all types of women, different races and sizes and sexualities, their flaws and their survival skills, their incredible ability to bear suffering.

But at the end of the season, which, if you haven't seen it, is pretty scary and horrifying and violent, I HAD to know: is this real? Do prisons in the US actually work like that? Because what the show depicts in microscopic detail is corruption on a level so deep, it's a wonder the country even holds together.
Now, I have the memory of a goldfish, so it was a complete surprise to me when my mother-in-law gave me the book (same title as the show) for Christmas.  It's a slim paperback (just 299 pages including the afterword.) And it's a fast-paced read that I careened through. Couldn't. Put. It. Down.

the book cover.

Piper Kerman (the author, upon whom the main character of the TV series, Piper Chapman, is based) ends up spending 13 months of a 15 month sentence in a women's prison 10 years after her non-violent drug crime. In that time, she experience degradation, the ineffectuality and indifference of institutions, and of course, powerful doses of love, support, ingenuity, friendship and camaraderie of a motley crew of people brought together in dire circumstances.  But the book is rather light on some of the show's juiciest details: one guard's intense homophobia (specifically against lesbians), one warden's downright criminal running of the prison (from the hint that she stole prison budget for her fancy car to threatening colleagues to covering up a rape), and Piper's affair with her ex-lover, (Nora in the book, Alex in the show). Plus, the lecherous and "rapey" guard Mendez.
If the book's silence on these issues is to be believed, then Netflix is just taking creative license; and there's nothing wrong with that. But Kerman is an advisor on the show's writing team. I have to wonder if she kept some stuff out of the book and is revealing it to the writers.

Taylor Schilling (right) who depicts Piper Kerman (left)

I have to say, OITNB was a bit of a harrowing read. Kerman writes well, but the stuff she relates is hard enough to bear, even without Netflix's lurid additions. I was thrilled and relieved every time I would reach a chapter I'd seen in the show and it turned out actually "easier" than what I'd viewed.
The biggest difference is that Kerman writes in this mature, Zen voice and doesn't make the mistakes her TV counterpart makes-- and nor are the people surrounding her as exaggerated. The show tries to elicit debate about the heroine's merits: she is accused of being selfish, flighty, changeable and whiny. Kerman gets no such abuse and doesn't appear to deserve it. Whether that is the way "things actually went down" or whether Kerman is painting herself in a flattering light and TV writers had to "dress her down", I don't know.
But in both forms, what draws me to this saga is the fantastic depiction of female relationships; they ring so true to me. Watching and reading OITNB is like looking out a dark lake on an overcast day: the water is black and frightening. But every now and then, the sun bursts through the clouds in a tiny ray, and the water flashes blinding gold. Those are the gems, the tiny moments of female companionship that are so moving, so true to life, and so precious.

Such a large female cast- it's fab!