A Question of Innocence: On Writing About Real and Imagined Lives In and Outside of Prison
This spring, I read Harriet Clark’s novel, The Hill, about a girl named Suzanna who grows up visiting her mother in a prison on a hill. I had just published a long Mother’s Day essay in Esquire, grappling with having
In "The Hill," Harriet Clark's novel, the protagonist Suzanna's mother is involved in a bank robbery and sentenced to life in prison, leaving her daughter without a mother figure. Suzanna visits her mother in prison, symbolizing abandonment. Harriet, whose own mother was part of a revolutionary group and received a life sentence for her involvement, was raised by her grandmother after being eleven months old when her mother was imprisoned.
Harriet's grandmother raised and mentored her, unlike Suzanna, who was raised by her mother's collective. Harriet, who served time with one of her mother's co-defendants, was introduced to the world of crime and imprisonment through her writing. Harriet's novel, which explores themes of abandonment, shame, and prison life, was influenced by her own experiences and those of her mother.
She hoped her work would offer a sense of catharsis and protection for her family's privacy, though the act of writing and imagining these scenarios felt just as exposing as sharing her actual experiences.
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