Serving Time Too: A Memoir of My Son's Prison Years - Paperback

by Rosalind Boone Williams (Author), Patricia Dunlavy Valenti (With)

Serving Time Too: A Memoir of My Son's Prison Years is the universally accessible story of a mother and son: what she knew about him; what she will never understand; how she helped him, and when she needed to let him go. But Rosalind Williams' memoir is unique because her unconditional love for Marell persisted after his conviction for murder. During his sixteen years in prison and for two-and-a-half years after his release, every aspect of Rosalind's life was affected by her fidelity to him and by the failures of a penal system tinged with racial and class inequities.

Rosalind tells a personal story with enormous significance to society. She is an unflinchingly fair, sometimes self-critical narrator who reflects upon the enticements of violence and crime, especially for African American young men, despite the values they are taught at home. Her experiences demonstrate the damage that crime and punishment inflict upon those good people who stand by loved ones during and after incarceration. This memoir will comfort anyone related to the 2.3 million people behind bars in the United States. Others will hear a call to reform and, more importantly, they will feel compassion for the offender's family, and the offender.

No other book in print takes Rosalind's perspective on the problems of crime and incarceration.

Author Biography

Rosalind Boone Williams was the director of a municipal recreation center where she dedicated her career to mentoring youth. She is an avid amateur photographer and writer of poetry and short stories that express compassion for those in difficult situations.

Patricia Dunlavy Valenti is professor emerita in Department of English and Theatre at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She has published two biographies.