Running a Book Group in a Male Prison ~ by Minnie Birch

The Handmaid's Tale.
   

I read Margaret Atwoods' The Handmaid's Tale back when I was in University. We had a whole module on Dystopian/Utopian texts, which was a dream! The reading list included things like Herland, 1984, We, Brave New World, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, to name a few. It was a wonderful time. This was exactly what I had imagined it would be like studying literature at University... reading all the classics and discussing them with groups of like-minded people. My university had lots of green space so you could sit on the grounds outside debating the classics. Pretentious, pompous, and just what 21-year-old me had ordered!

     Fast-forward a few years and The Handmaids Tale is made into a TV series (I still haven’t seen it yet!) It is in the minds of many, so when choosing a book with my all-male prison book group, this one comes up as our choice for the March session. I can’t recall the whole ins and outs of the story as it has been some time since I read it, but I flinched slightly at the idea. There is definitely a sex scene.
       Do I want to end up discussing consensual/non-consensual sex with a group of men? What will they make of it? But the book group is a democracy (and if it was only ever me choosing, we’d have been reading every Harry Potter book and mostly having conversations around things like “are you team Edward or Jacob?” so it is best I let them choose.)
     I am, as is often the case, surprised by the response from the group to the book. Even those who haven’t had a chance to read it managed to pick up on the storyline and themes, and we ended up in a debate about gender identity, women’s rights, the feminist movement, and somehow fall down a rabbit hole of talking about a wide range of topics. This is something I find really fascinating

about the group and book groups in general. They provide a safe space for discussion about the most interesting off topic things with people whom you might otherwise just politely pass the time of day.
     I will be regularly blogging a little about my book group meetings and go a bit more in-depth about our discussions, but as this is the first one, I thought I’d just round up by saying a little about who we are - without giving away too much information that would cause a problem for the men who attend or for me. For obvious reasons, we don’t usually talk too much about the residents outside of the workplace.
     The group has been going for just over two years. We have had members aged 28-83! We are a mixture of backgrounds: from East London to Portugal, some of us are avid readers – one currently working their way through Shakespeare’s entire back catalogue --  and some have only learnt to read since coming to prison. 
       Some are serving life sentences, others are repeat offenders, and for some, we find are total fish out of water in the system when a momentary lapse of judgement/concentration has led some to find themselves here. Some have owned businesses, traveled the world, never left home towns, have a family who are no strangers to the prison system, or have a family who have disowned for finding themselves here. Some are fathers, husbands, sons, brothers. Some have been or are addicts, at least one has survived cancer, one has been in the army, and another has been a baker. 
     

We are all different, but we all enjoy cake and coffee and a chance to get together on a Monday afternoon and talk about books.

photos courtesy of pexels.com

Minnie Birch lives in the UK and is a regular contributor to Originality by Design. You can find out more about Minnie and her work by clicking Website