Sing Soft, Sing Loud: Scenes from Two Lives

Portraying the lives of women in prison, Iva, a young prostitute, and Toni, a woman pushed too far, talk about life behind bars--from the "screws" who oversee them, to their fellow inmates, to the men they know

Subtitled Scenes from Two Lives , these 15 stories focus on the experiences of two young women inmates in U.S. municipal and federal prisons. The author, a veteran of California jails and the Federal Reformatory for Women in Alderson, W. Va., writes with forceful authority and a natural story teller's instinct for character. The first section follows Iva, a spirited young California hooker, in and out of jail, detailing her friendships with other prisoners and the antagonism between them and the prison "screws." The title story, in which Iva helps a young addict endure her first night by singing, is particularly deft and effective. The longer, second section is about Toni, a young woman caught carrying drugs for her lover and sent to Alderson, where the conditions of daily life are more civilized but the lack of freedom is as onerous as in any city lock-up. Innately intelligent and feisty, Toni is limited by her upbringing, her lack of education and a desperate dependence on men. Paroled to her demanding father, she falls back into old habits and runs away. Eschewing the sensational aspects of prison life for women, McConnel develops her characters with integrity and depth--they are women first, prisoners second--making her plea for sympathy all the more powerful.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This novel's success rests in its realism; it is based almost wholly on the author's own experiences in a series of prisons over a six-year period. With empathy and narrative skill, McConnel tells the stories of Iva and Toni, two very different women who meet briefly in jail. Iva is a poor, street-smart prostitute for whom prison is a second home, while middle-class Toni, in search of love and excitement, has become involved with drug dealers and pimps. But both are uneducated, transient, and thus nearly unemployable women who inhabit a place that society often overlooks, and both are survivors. This first novel is an achievement not only because it exposes in detail the practices of a prison system obsessed with power but because it offers involving and often moving characterizations.
- Jean Keleher, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.