Many Orange is the New Black fans wonder how close the plot line of the Netflix series is to the book the hit show was based on. “I was not like Piper Chapman,” Piper Kerman, author of Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, said. “I was a model prisoner.” While Kerman and Chapman might not share the same values, their humor, intelligent composure and blonde hair remain amusingly similar.
Delta Gamma invited best selling author Piper Kerman to share her story at the annual Wilson Delta Gamma Lectureship in Values and Ethics. The lectureship attracted Indiana University students, faculty and members of the Bloomington community who were interested in learning about Kerman’s road to prison. Some, however, gathered at Alumni Hall with the hopes of catching a sneak preview of the upcoming season of Orange is the New Black.
When Piper Kerman graduated from Smith College in 1992, she didn’t set out to become a convicted felon. But while her friends went on to get internships and “job jobs” that gave them money, Kerman says she went on to be labeled as “that kid who hangs around after graduation.”
Eventually she landed a job at a local restaurant in Massachusetts where she met her notorious on screen lover, Alex Vause (a pseudo name for Clearly Wolters). “She was a very worldly and sophisticated older woman,” Kerman recalled. “Even more sophisticated than I expected.”
Kerman’s romantic partner only moonlighted as a waitress, for her main source of income came from dealing heroin for a West African kingpin. Nonetheless, 20-something-year-old Piper didn’t hesitate to escape the boring confines of her hometown when her lover asked her to travel with her to places that seemed “unimaginably exciting and exotic.” While Bali and Zurich were definitely more scenic than waiting tables in Massachusetts, Kerman unknowingly signed herself up for more than she bargained for.
“I thought I could be around that stuff and not cross that invisible line,” Kerman said, but her incarceration proved that wrong. After laundering money for a drug operation by delivering a bag from Chicago to Brussels, Kerman felt that the line she had crossed was irrevocable. So, she ended the relationship with Wolters and returned home.
In 1998, 10 years after leaving the criminal act behind her, Kerman found herself opening her apartment door to a journey that she was “ironically unprepared for.” The decade old crime she thought she left behind in Brussels came back to haunt her. She was about to join the biggest prison population in the world, which would ultimately change her life forever.
Piper Kerman spent the duration of her 11-month sentence in a federal minimum-security women’s prison in Danbury, Conn., abiding by the prison rules, prisoner’s rules, and prison rituals. If you couldn’t get with the program, Kerman said, you’d find yourself in solitary confinement, which was the harshest punishment after the death sentence.
Prisoner’s rules were devised by the prisoners to govern the community. “It was a community that no one wants to be a part of, but a community they are part of nonetheless,” Kerman said. The prison rituals, on the other hand, “helped make you feel more human in a place devised to take your humanity away.”
During her speech, Kerman touched upon several topics she wrote about in her book which are portrayed in the exaggerated plot of the Netflix series. She discussed the issue of race in the prison system, gender inequality, and the powerful effects solitary confinement has on the emotional and mental well being of prisoners.
“My observation from doing my own time is that for a lot of people who filled those places, they experienced marginalization,” Kerman said. “If we think more about drawing people into the heart of the community, if we are successful at that, we would be a lot less reliant on the prison system.”
When Kerman wrote her book, her ultimate goal was to show readers that every prisoner is a complicated human with a story, and more than just their criminal act. While the dramatic plot of Orange is the New Black strays tremendously from the author’s memoir, Kerman says that “the finely observed details that make the show rich are what allow for crazy story lines.”
“People wanted to know about my experience in as much detail as I would diverge,” Kerman said. “If I wrote about my story in a pop culture way, I’d get someone to pick up a book about prison who wouldn’t normally read about prison.”
The book challenged free people to imagine themselves in an orange jumpsuit, so they could feel for Kerman’s inmates the way she felt for them. “We have a lot of words to describe prisoners which does not include ‘people’,” she said. Most fans of Jenji Kohan’s adaptation of Kerman’s book would say that the author was successful in transmitting those sympathetic feelings.
The meaning behind the title of the author’s book lies in the 650% increase in incarceration of women since the 1980’s. “I bet you’re thinking, how did I miss this female crime-wave?” Kerman joked. “Anyone who’s read a fashion magazine knows the cliché that ‘purple is the new black’ or ‘green is the new black. The idea that an orange jumpsuit could fit into a cliché is the tongue and cheek of the title,” Kerman said. The shocking growth of female convicted felons makes the person wearing the orange jumpsuit more likely to be a woman, the Smith alum said.
When asked if she ever considered playing Piper Chapman in the adaptation of her memoir because of her background in theatre at Smith College, Kerman let out a rich, throaty laugh. “The simple answer is no, but you can see me in every show,” she answered. The introduction to every episode of the comedy-drama shows the faces of female criminals. What most viewers of Orange is the New Black don’t know is that those faces aren’t of the actresses portrayed in the series, but rather “incredibly beautiful, fascinating faces” of real women who were incarcerated, including Piper Kerman.
Kerman’s long and strenuous journey led her to connecting to a community she never would have imagined herself being part of. “Our ideas are prison are of uncontrollably violent places with uncontrollably violent people,” she said, which is why her lawyer told her not to make any friends in prison. “How could you survive without a friend?” Kerman asked. “It’s a profoundly lonely and isolating experience.”
Ignoring her lawyer’s bad advice, Kerman says that the women she met over the long year helped her survive prison. When she first stepped into the prison in Danbury, fellow prisoners stepped up to make sure they had basic things she needed to survive the first few days. Everything from toothpaste to shower shoes had to be bought at the commissary, but without money, new prisoners couldn’t make purchases. So, Kerman said, the “welcome wagon” of inmates who knew the ins and outs of the system set her up with essentials.
“The last thing I thought I would experience is kindness from strangers, but that’s what I found, kindness. The women I met there shared their survival with me, and I am eternally grateful for them."
