Cristina Rathbone has written for numerous magazines and newspapers, including the New York Daily News and The Miami Herald. Her last book, On the Outside Looking In: A Year in an Inner-City High School, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was selected as one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library. She lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, with her two young children.
“Cristina Rathbone is a fearless journalist, not only because she
spent five years talking to women inmates at Framingham, but
because she would not let the authorities keep her from telling the
close-up truth about the lives of women in prison. This book will
alter the way we think about the mothers, daughters, wives, and
sisters our society has forgotten.”
–Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
“The crimes committed by American women do not justify the crimes
now being committed against them in our prisons. Cristina Rathbone
has written a powerful book about the cruelty of this system, full
of eloquence, dark humor, and compassion.”
–Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
“This is an important, hard-won book, throughout which the deepest
meanings of commitment come to bear: the unjust commitment of women
to our nation’s prisons, the women’s commitment to their families
and the risks of hope, and, as strikingly, Cristina Rathbone’s
commitment to her profession and her craft.”
–Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family
“A World Apart should be required reading for all Americans, and
especially those concerned about gender and justice. Through
compelling narratives of inmate lives, interspersed with historical
background, Rathbone exposes the high personal and social costs of
poverty, violence, and sexual coercion. Beautifully presented,
these stories provide both raw and tender accounts of institutional
life, documenting as well women’s struggles to break the cycle of
institutionalization. The contrast between historical episodes of
prison reform and the contemporary disaster of women’s prisons will
sadden and should enrage readers.”
–Estelle B. Freedman, Edgar E. Robinson professor of U.S. history,
Stanford University, author of Their Sisters’ Keepers: Women’s
Prison Reform in America, 1830—1930
"Cristina Rathbone is a fearless journalist, not only because she
spent five years talking to women inmates at Framingham, but
because she would not let the authorities keep her from telling the
close-up truth about the lives of women in prison. This book will
alter the way we think about the mothers, daughters, wives, and
sisters our society has forgotten."
-Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
"The crimes committed by American women do not justify the crimes
now being committed against them in our prisons. Cristina Rathbone
has written a powerful book about the cruelty of this system, full
of eloquence, dark humor, and compassion."
-Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation
"This is an important, hard-won book, throughout which the deepest
meanings of commitment come to bear: the unjust commitment of women
to our nation's prisons, the women's commitment to their families
and the risks of hope, and, as strikingly, Cristina Rathbone's
commitment to her profession and her craft."
-Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family
"A World Apart should be required reading for all Americans, and
especially those concerned about gender and justice. Through
compelling narratives of inmate lives, interspersed with historical
background, Rathbone exposes the high personal and social costs of
poverty, violence, and sexual coercion. Beautifully presented,
these stories provide both raw and tender accounts of institutional
life, documenting as well women's struggles to break the cycle of
institutionalization. The contrast between historical episodes of
prison reform and the contemporary disaster of women's prisons will
sadden and should enrage readers."
-Estelle B. Freedman, Edgar E. Robinson professor of U.S.
history, Stanford University, author of Their Sisters' Keepers:
Women's Prison Reform in America, 1830-1930
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