Description
Book SynopsisServing Time Too: A Memoir of My Sonâs Prison Years reveals how a motherâs loving fidelity to her son throughout his incarceration and after his release makes her an unintended victim of crime and punishment. Millions have lived this story, but Williams is the first to present it in print.
Trade ReviewServing Time Too reveals a mother’s struggle to minimize the suffering and foster the moral growth of her incarcerated son while turning her fierce critical intelligence on the penal system and herself. This book offers comforting advice to the countless families of people in prison and is an eye-opener for the rest of us. -- Bell Gale Chevigny, Professor Emerita of Literature, Purchase College, State University of New York, editor, Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing
In Serving Time Too, Rosalind Williams recounts with overwhelming love and compassion the sixteen years her son, Marell, was incarcerated for murder. Accompanied throughout by her stalwart husband, James, and her understanding daughters, Kesia and Sidnee, Mrs. Williams never faltered in her focus on Marell’s welfare as he endured cycles of total isolation and routine menial jobs in a series of correctional facilities and prisons throughout North Carolina. This masterful narrative, an unparalleled spiritual autobiography filled with vivid detail and judicious insight, is riveting from beginning to end. -- Patrick J. Samway, Professor Emeritus of English, St. Joseph’s University, former literary editor, America.
A gripping account of a family tragedy told with eloquence and honesty, Rosalind Williams’s Serving Time Too could be any parent’s story in today’s America. This is a compelling testimonial to the perseverance, faith, and love of a mother engaged in a desperate struggle to sustain her son enmeshed in the relentless cogs of the criminal justice system. -- William Leake Andrews, E. Maynard Adams Distinguished Professor of Literature, The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, author, Slavery and Class in the American South
Table of ContentsSection I: Visiting The Jail, February 4, 1996 to October 9, 1997 1. That Night 2. Looking Back 3. That First Week 4. That First Month 5. That Spring 6. That Summer 7. That Fall, the Holidays, and Another Year Begins 8. Partings Section II: Visiting the Prisons, October 10, 1997 to May 28, 2012 1. Transition 2. Prison for Real 3. Opportunities Lost 4. The Penitentiary 5. The Dark Shadow 6. Still Standing 7. Illness and Death 8. Secrets 9. Sunday Dinners Again 10. Too Much Freedom? 11. Risky Relationships 12. Home Visits Section III: The Prison After Prison, May 29, 2012 to December 1, 2014 1. Parole 2. After Parole 3. Free at Last Afterward and Acknowledgments About the Authors
