Read Newjack

Over the summer, I went to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies national conference in Little Rock, Ark. (Y'all may remember the photos.) Anyway, while I was there, I attended a seminar given by Ted Conover, who talked about his experience writing his most recent book, Newjack. In the early '90s, he was working on a story for the New Yorker about the lives of corrections officers at Sing Sing. The NY Department of Corrections absolutely refused to let Conover visit the training academy (which is here in Albany), or with any of the officers in the prison, so he applied to become an officer himself. When he gets accepted to the academy (like a year or so later), he goes, trains, becomes an officer, and guards Sing Sing for a year. People like this are so inspirational to me. Anyway, needless to say, I bought his book and (eventually) read it, and I suggest you do, too. It's simply fascinating. I liked the book so much that I emailed Mr. Conover and told him so. (I often do this with authors I enjoy, and they always email back, which I think is very cool of them.) I wrote:

Hi Mr. Conover,
I heard you speak at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies in Little Rock, Ark., last summer, and bought Newjack shortly thereafter. Though it took me a while to get to it, when I started reading, I flew through it. I'm fascinated by prison culture, and I found your book gripping from beginning to end. I just wanted to drop you a line to tell you how much I enjoyed it, and how much I respect what you do as a journalist. Thank you for the opportunity to gain such rare insight into a part of life that few even take the time to consider.

Sincerely,
Kathryn Lurie

He wrote back:

Hi, Kathryn,
Thank you for the kind email. I appreciate it--and glad to know of the connection to the AAN meeting. It will be interesting to see how/whether NYSDOCS changes under the Spitzer administration: I hope he has the guts to challenge that giant, mindless system ...
Best,
Ted Conover