Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside

I think some of the negative reviews posted here stem from the fact that this memoir is so achingly honest that it makes some people uncomfortable when they imagine themselves in Kinsella's position and they lash out at her to push away the pain she's dealing with in this beautifully written and uncompromising memoir. I'm not a soft touch with books (movies can often make me cry, but books rarely do), but i was teary-eyed reading Kinsella's memoir. The penultimate chapter, MOTHER'S DAY, is particularly moving and sensitively observed as that deals with the Get on the Bus program that brings children into prisons on Mother's Day weekend to visit their incarcerated mothers. This is a real heart-breaker with sobering facts sprinkled throughout ("According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, as of 2000, 1.5 million children in the United States have an incarcerated parent. That same study show that women are being imprisoned at a much more rapid rate than men; in the 1990s female prisoners rose by 106 percent and male prisoners by 58 percent."). I'm also a slow reader but this book moved around with me from the moment I picked it up: it was with me on the subway, in the bathroom and by my computer at home. As it got closer to the end, I was reading it almost like a novel, wondering just how was this story going to end. Not once did i feel myself losing interest or wishing that Kinsella had done anything different (meaning I never found myself thinking, "Just get on with it" or "go back to..."). VISITING LIFE was a riveting read; very affecting and one that you'll want to discuss with friends. This is an inspirational title that upturns many pre-conceptions from readers (especially the notion of how any woman could enter into a--even platonic--relationship with a man in prison). Kinsella's portraits of many of the other women visiting men in the same prison are haunting, sympathetic and initially as suspicious as most readers would be. This is a story about Kinsella's process for healing old wounds that haunted her for years and hindered her ability to trust and to make herself vulnerable by making herself available for a new relationship. Impatient readers who anonymously tell her to "just get on with it" seem to miss the whole point of the book. She wasn't able to get on with her life and it wasn't until she found the perfect combination of a "safe" man (behind bars) who was also open to doing what he could to help her heal, that she was able to come out the other side. This is an amazing achievement.

There were numerous times throughout the book when I thought the author was being conned by the convict or she was trying to con the reader. However, something kept bringing me back to the book with eagerness and enthusiasm. There is a lot to be touched by in this book, but the author's descriptions of the love between her and her family, especially her mother and grandmother, are extremely touching and make it clear how she can have such an open heart. There is nothing more rewarding than reading an author who is willing to tell their tale with raw emotional honesty. I can't even imagine what Ms. Kinsella's peers must have thought when she told them of her romance with a lifer. But she followed her heart and her own path and wrote a book that packs a real emotional wallop. I commend her for such an outstanding effort and look forward to reading more from her in the future.

I wasn't sure just what to expect when I started reading this book, but I'd been intrigued by the press mentions. Once I got started on a sunny Sunday afternoon I read the entire thing straight through! This author opens up a world I'm not likely ever to see from my little suburban perch, and I was really moved by the stories of the other women that she met. And as for her story, I can totally understand her feelings. It is easy to feel like a complete stranger in our society if you don't fit into the married-with-kids mold that is all around us. Bless her for finding a way to work through her own feelings, and for being brave enough to share them. Jennifer Sander

Kinsella's willingness to tell this story is admirable -- she's not the kind of woman who thought she'd ever have a relationship with a murderer housed in the supermax prison of Pelican Bay, yet that's exactly where she found herself. An inspiring memoir about what love can do, how it can help us realize our true potential, even when comes it from the most unexpected sources, as it did in Kinsella's case. A rare valentine of a book.

Kinsella sheds light on a world many people have probably never considered: women who love men in prison. And she does it in such a way that is never patronizing or scandalous. I love how she juxtaposes the stories of the other women with the very honest account of how she herself fell in love with a convicted murder who was serving a life sentence without parole. This is a beautiful book; journalistic but personal, sad but hopeful.