Women Outside the Walls

Book excerpt: Alma, Kitty and Hattie have one thing in common. The men that they love and married are in prison. Wives visit their men behind bars every day and wonder how their lives brought them to this place. This story focuses on three of these women. Alma is an exotic dancer who seems, at first glance, to be a bit of a nitwit. But on closer inspection she has a street-smart wisdom and humor. Hattie is a hard working African American with four children who is trying to keep her family together. Then there is Kitty, a wealthy socialite, who in spite of the shame and embarrassment of visiting a prison where her husband refuses to see her, doggedly visits every other week. In a series of flash backs we see these women when they lived normal lives with their husbands and children. The plot explodes when Chelsea, Alma and Charlie's daughter, disappears. One visiting day something happens that will change each of their lives forever as the visiting room erupts with violence and heartbreak. This story is based in truth and was inspired while the author was at the Dixon Correctional Facility in Dixon, Illinois, waiting to visit a confessed murderer. It was heart breaking to observe the women and children waiting to see their husbands, fathers, sons and brothers who might be incarcerated for a few months or for life.