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Couldn’t Keep It to Myself

Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters

Wally Lamb

372 Pages

On-Sale Date: 03/02/2004

ISBN: 9780060595371

Trim Size: 5.950in x 9.000in x 1.000in

$19.99

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“Lying next to and rising out of despair, hope permeates the book. Why, in the end, does Lamb want us to care about 10 women in prison? Perhaps because in noticing the humanity of others, we become more human ourselves.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

Couldn’t Keep It to Myself once again shows Wally Lamb’s unmatched talent for finding the humanity in the lost and lonely.

For the past several years Lamb has taught writing to women prisoners at the York Correctional Institution. With courage and candor, these women came to discover their voices, and to share tales of abuse, rejection, and their own self-destructive impulses. Yet these are stories of hope, humor, and the triumph of leaving victimhood behind to begin the process of healing.

Lamb’s powerful introduction describes the incredible, inspiring journey he and the women of York took through the writing process. Couldn’t Keep It to Myself is a true testament to the process of finding oneself and striving for a better day.

Wally Lamb is the author of five New York Times bestselling novels: She’s Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True, The Hour I First Believed, Wishin’ and Hopin’, and We Are Water. His first two works of fiction, She’s Come Undone and I Know This Much Is True, were both #1 New York Times bestsellers and selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Lamb edited Couldn’t Keep It to Myself, I’ll Fly Away, and You Don’t Know Me, three volumes of essays from students in his writing workshop at York Correctional Institution, a women’s prison in Connecticut, where he has been a volunteer facilitator for two decades. He lives in Connecticut.

“Lying next to and rising out of despair, hope permeates the book. Why, in the end, does Lamb want us to care about 10 women in prison? Perhaps because in noticing the humanity of others, we become more human ourselves.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review

“An intriguing and powerful collection.” — Publishers Weekly

“The pieces are uniformly wrenching . . . . Yet they are as far from self-pity as possible. There are things, says Lamb, that need ‘to be known about prison and prisoners. There are misconceptions to be abandoned, biases to be dropped.’ Here’s a step in that direction.” — Kirkus Reviews

“The 12 riveting, touching autobiographical accounts [of Couldn’t Keep It to Myself] look past the bars to lay bare lives that would normally have gone unheard.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Without resorting to pity or braggadocio, the stories detail the authors’ early lives, prison experiences, relationships with abusive husbands and partners in heartbreaking, inspiring detail. . . .The stories in Couldn’t Keep It to Myself are self-assured, deftly structured, and grippingly paced. Impressively, not one narrative comes across as an excuse or rationalization.” — New York Post

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