Running the Books

September 6, 2010
In this captivating memoir, Steinberg, a Harvard grad and struggling obituary writer, spends two years as a librarian and writing instructor at a Boston prison that's an irrepressibly literary place. True, his patrons turn books into weapons (and one robs him while out on parole), but he's beguiled by the rough poetry of inmate essays and "kites"—contraband notes secreted in library books—and entranced by the "skywriting" with which they semaphore messages letter-by-letter across the courtyard. And there's always an informal colloquium of prostitutes, thieves, and drug dealers convened at the checkout desk, discussing everything from Steinberg's love life to the "gangsta" subculture of Hasidic Jews. Gradually, the prison pulls him in and undermines his bemused neutrality. He helps a forlorn female prisoner communicate with her inmate son, develops a dangerous beef with a guard, and finds himself collaborating on the memoir of a charismatic pimp whose seductive rap disguises a nasty rap sheet; he has to choose sides, make queasy compromises, and decide between rules and loyalty. Steinberg writes a stylish prose that blends deadpan wit with an acute moral seriousness. The result is a fine portrait of prison life and the thwarted humanity that courses through it.

July 15, 2010

A former yeshiva student depicts the goings-on inside a Boston prison.

Adrift after graduating from Harvard, Steinberg realized that his job as a freelance obituary writer was not satisfying enough. He considered grad school but realized that "I wasn't going to be of any use to a university, and vice versa. And so the choice crystallized in my mind: It was either law school or prison. The decision was clear." So the author took a job as a prison librarian. This memoir has more literary power than the usual similar fare—sweeter than Jeffrey Archer's complaints, more lucid than Tommy Chong's ruminations. With notes on penology and prison architecture, Steinberg describes the manifold workings of a Big House library. The aesthetics of his patrons ran to contemporary matter ("The true crime genre was...a favorite"), rather than Shakespeare and other classics. His library was a legal research center, a clearing house for written messages, a meeting place and a haven of solitude. During his time there, the author taught creative writing to student inmates and, inevitably, learned much from the many different types of criminals he encountered. He provides vivid character sketches of  Nasty, C.C. Too Sweet, JizzB, Dumayne and others. Of course, the names "and personal characteristics" are changed to protect the innocent writer, but most important are the loyalties and allegiances behind bars and the writer's complicated relationships with his patrons. Throughout, Steinberg muses over ethical dilemmas with rabbinical indecisiveness, and his text, burdened with complex implications, is founded on simple kindliness. 

Nice jailhouse work by a bright public servant.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 15, 2010

Here is a novel way to deal with your personal problems: become a prison librarian. Steinberg, a Harvard graduate, felt that he was not living up to expectations. Almost as therapy, he took a job as a prison librarian in a tough Boston prison. Like Gulliver, he now tells about his two years in this foreign environment. First, he had to confront the challenge of bringing literature to people who may never see the light of day again. Then, in a creative writing course he taught for inmates, he listened to their stories, reflecting on his own life as he did so. When it finally struck him that he was an unwilling jailer he left the job. There are some striking similarities between Steinberg's memoir and Piper Kerman's Orange Is the New Black, with both memoirists Ivy League graduates unlikely to be destined for prison, Steinberg as librarian, Kerman as an inmate. VERDICT This is an excellent choice for those considering prison librarianship, and those wishing to learn more about prison life. Prison librarians should of course consider it for their collections, too.--Frances Sandiford, formerly with Green Haven Correctional Facility Lib., Stormville, NY

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2010
When Steinberg graduated from Harvard, he expected to become a rabbi, but neither his faith nor his chosen lifestyle made that a suitable career choice. As a stopgap, he applied to work in a Boston jail library. There he was responsible not only for the day-to-day functioning of the library but also for teaching inmates creative writing. A dedicated intellectual and instinctively diffident, he was almost too easy prey for tough, aggressive, streetwise, ever-conniving criminals. To his chagrin, the hard-bitten prison staff equally tested his presuppositions about humanitys benevolence. Caroming instantaneously from profane comedy to abysmal tragedy, Steinberg recounts his struggles to relate humanely to people at the edge of society. Prison librarianship offers some of the professions greatest challenges, and Steinberg tells just what its like to suddenly recognize that the mugger attacking him in the park was the same guy he had checked out some books to a few months earlier.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)