In the Spider's Web: A Nonfiction Novel, by Jerome Gold
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In the Spider's Web: A Nonfiction Novel, by Jerome Gold
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In the Spider's Web is set in Ash Meadow, a prison for children in Washington State. The story centers on Caitlin Weber, a girl who, in collusion with her mother and four other children, murdered her mother's employer. While the murder is briefly depicted, it is with what happens afterward to two of the perpetrators, particularly Caitlin, that the story is primarily focused. Arrested less than a week following the murder, Caitlin and her best friend, Sonia, are charged as adults and each sentenced to 22 years in prison. Caitlin was 13 years old; Sonia was 14 years and one week old. Neither had been in legal trouble before. Upon sentencing, they were sent to Ash Meadow where they would stay until they turned 18. Then they would be transferred to Purdy, a prison for adult women, to serve the remainder of their sentences. In the Spider's Web focuses on Caitlin's experience in Ash Meadow and on her relationship with Jerry, her rehabilitation counselor (and the author of this book). Part I of the book provides the reader with a feel for the prison environment that awaits Caitlin, and introduces the reader to the staff and inmates of the Maximum Security unit where Caitlin will live for most of her time in Ash Meadow. Part I also introduces the reader to the relationships between staff, and between staff and the administrators who govern the prison, which relationships will have an effect on Caitlin.Part II begins with Caitlin's arrival at the prison and the start of her relationship with Jerry. The relationship is rocky at first, because Jerry has the same name and is around the same age as the man Caitlin helped to kill. Although Jerry does not know this at first, Caitlin is effectively haunted by her victim. She is assailed by guilt over what she did, and anger toward her mother whose idea the murder was. She struggles with depression and has contemplated suicide. She wants t deny responsibility for her role in the murder and resents Jerry for bringing up the past when she wants to forget it. But as their relationship progresses, they develop respect and even love for each other, she for him because he does not judge her and because she senses that in some way he is like her; he for her because, despite her sometimes feeling overwhelmed by prison life, something in her insists that she keep trying to better herself, to make life tolerable for herself even in confinement. He is the surrogate for the father who abandoned her when she was small, and she is the daughter he lost when he was divorced. Eventually Caitlin is transferred to the adult prison at Purdy and Jerry resigns from his job. In an epilogue, the reader sees that their relationship, while changed, continues. Leonard Chang, author of Triplines and Over the Shoulder, provides this testimonial: "In the Spider's Web takes a penetrating look into the lives of juvenile prisoners caught in their traumatized circumstances and struggling to maintain a semblance of normalcy. Jerome Gold has transformed his years of experience as a rehab counselor into a riveting and important narrative, offering insight into a difficult world that is at times harrowing as well as deeply moving. This is a resonant and significant book." Note: In the Spider's Web is the second book to be published concerning the author's experience as a counselor in Ash Meadow. The first book was published under the title Paranoia & Heartbreak: Fifteen Years in a Juvenile Facility. A third book is underway.
In the Spider's Web: A Nonfiction Novel, by Jerome Gold - Amazon Sales Rank: #3183557 in Books
- Brand: Gold, Jerome
- Published on: 2015-05-20
- Released on: 2015-05-20
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.48" h x .63" w x 5.43" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 215 pages
In the Spider's Web: A Nonfiction Novel, by Jerome Gold Review Jerome Gold calls In the Spider's Web a nonfiction novel. In it, he depicts the routines and characters of a prison for juveniles, centering on one young woman in particular. All the events really happened and are drawn from his years working as a rehabilitation counselor at the institution he calls Ash Meadow… As might be expected, the stories Gold relates are often disturbing, but they are beautifully told from a sober and compassionate perspective. Caitlin Weber was convicted of the murder of her mother's employer. Caitlin and four other teens, under the direction of her mother, to whom Caitlin was said to be uniquely loyal, [killed the man] when Caitlin was thirteen. At fourteen, Caitlin entered Ash Meadow, where Jerry requested to be assigned as her case manager. The two became very close as Caitlin worked toward recovering from her trauma, establishing healthier relationships, and ultimately, being rehabilitated. Gold also details the drama and dysfunction of staff relationships. Gifted and caring counselors do immensely good work there, but at the other end of the spectrum lie abuse, neglect, and failures that are as troubling to read about as the lives of the young prisoners. Gold's characters are fully developed and complex; even juvenile murderers are surprisingly sympathetic once their full stories are told… The tone of Gold's remembrances is wondering, quiet, and contemplative, and also ofter searingly angry or hurt. Caitlin's story does not wrap up neatly, because it is true. But in Gold's tender, precise prose, Caitlin comes vividly to life and gains the fair consideration he asks for her. --Julia Jenkins, Foreword ReviewsThere is quiet anger that grinds through prison writing. A compulsion to tell the world what goes on inside locked wards, accompanied by the equally powerful sense that anyone willing to look may be suspect. Jerome Gold, who writes of the years he spent working in a Washington state juvenile lockup, describes these feelings with sharp economy in his spare, sometimes devastating new book, In the Spider's Web: There was nobody on the outside I could talk to, nobody willing to listen to something like this, he says after learning that the newest resident in his cottage is a boy convicted of killing his younger brother. The depravity stuns even this veteran of the system. Yet almost instantly comes the punishing afterthought: The story had struck so deep that I would not want to talk about it, that I would be angry with anyone who would listen, that I would regard him or her as a voyeur. The setting is Ash Meadow, a pseudonym for the state facility where Gold spent 15 years counseling teenagers convicted of murder, rape and other crimes. The kids in Spider's Web are all first-name pseudonyms, too, though the author's note says that everything in what Gold calls a nonfiction novel happened in real life. Stark realism is the book's greatest strength. In the Spider's Web reads like a diary, rat-ta-ta-tat facts interspersed with passages of sudden eloquence. What plot does exist centers on staff intrigue who's incompetent, who's abusive and the relationship that develops between our narrator, Jerry, and a girl named Caitlin, convicted at 13 of helping her mother murder an employer. Their friendship becomes pivotal for Jerry, but we learn this through an economy of personal detail that will leave some readers wanting more.... Gold, who also wrote Paranoia & Heartbreak: Fifteen Years in a Juvenile Facility, is clearly committed to the material and wants readers to see these young felons as human beings. His terse description tends to undercut that effort. But sometimes style and substance come together with stark power, as in this passage about a 14-year-old boy's confusion at receiving a birthday card from his grandmother: He couldn't believe he was only fourteen; he had even forgotten it was his birthday. He felt so old. In interviews, Gold has said that he ultimately left the job out of anger at a system built for orienting kids to prison, not a life outside. Honesty like that is the most valuable aspect of his work, and Gold is at his best when he lets it rip: During my time at Ash Meadow, I had come to despise such expressions as 'healing process' and 'reconciliation' and 'forgiveness.' In my experience, people did not heal; rather, scar tissue built up over the surface of the wound so that air could not get to it, but the injury was always there, he writes. And if the cause of conflict or pain was too great to think about, they compressed it until they could hide it in a part of themselves that they did not visit, and this was called 'forgiveness.' --Claudia Rowe, The Seattle Times
About the Author Jerome Gold is the author of fourteen books, including The Moral Life of Soldiers and the memoir, Paranoia & Heartbreak: Fifteen Years in a Juvenile Facility. Russell Banks said about this book: I ve finished reading Jerome Gold s terrific book cover to cover without a break... It s a powerful and very tenderhearted book without a soupçon of sentimentality. Unforgettable! Mr. Gold s novels include Sergeant Dickinson, about which the New York Times Book Review said: [It] belongs on the high, narrow shelf of first-rate fiction about battlefield experience. He has published stories, essays, reviews and poems in Chiron Review, Moon City Review, Fiction Review, Boston Review, Hawaii Review, and other journals.
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Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Our children deserve better. By Amazon Customer Sad but true. This is why even the best programs fail. The get tough, treat them like adults does not work. It is the adults not the children that have failed. This is why this country has more people locked up than any other in the world?
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