2017 Michigan Notable Book Selection presented by The Detroit Free Press

How do w"men ? mothers?? daughters?? aunts?? nieces and grandmothers ? make sense of judgment to a lifetime behind bars? In Women Doing Life?? Lora Bex Lempert presents a typology of the ways that life-sentenced women grow and self-actualize?? resist prison definitions?? reflect on and ??own?? their criminal acts?? and ultimately create meaningful lives behind prison walls. Looking beyond the explosive headlines that often characterize these women as monsters?? Lempert offers rare insight into this vulnerable?? little studied population. ?Her gendered analysis considers the ways that women ??do crime?? differently than men and how they have qualitatively different experiences of imprisonment than their male counterparts. Through in-depth interviews with 72 women serving life sentences in Michigan?? Lempert brings these wom