While surviving in London, Ann Walmsley was brutally mugged just outside her own house. The strike shook her belief in the essential goodness of individuals and remaining her therefore shaken she was unable to walk outside alone for quite a while. A couple of years later on, now returned to Canada, her friend Carol Finlay asked her to participate in a book club within a men’s medium security jail. Ann’s interest and desire to be of service eventually overcame her panic and fear and she agreed upon on.

For eighteen a few months, about The Prison Book Club Ann accompanied Carol to a remote control building at Collins Bay, ending up in heavily tattooed publication club members WITHOUT the current presence of guards or security cameras. Unlike the book night clubs she participated in outside of prison, there were no wines and parmesan cheese, no nice furnishings, nor superficial chat about jobs or latest vacations. Yet, the prison book club became a place to share ideas, find out about each other, and regain humanity.

For the inmates, the books were rare prized possessions and the conferences an oasis of security and a rest from isolation in an otherwise hostile environment. And their reactions towards the books had been sincere and multifacited. Discussions about the obstacles the characters experienced uncovered glimpses of their very own struggles, sometimes devastating and occasionally comic. Reading a multitude of books – The Grapes of Wrath, The Cellist of Sarajevo, Outliers to Infidel, etc, – the discussions became a launching point for revealing conversations about reduction, anger, redemption, heroism and loneliness.

In The Prison Publication Golf club, Walmsley follows 6 particularly involved book club users, asking them to keep journals and participated in candid one-on-one conversations. Ann portrays these inmates – Graham the biker, Frank the gunman, Ben and Dread the Jamaicans, as well as the robber duo Gaston and Peter – with awareness and understanding and follows their lives because they leave jail. And Ann herself increases, overcoming her dread and reconciling her knowledge of their crimes with the people themselves. Woven throughout is the compassionate perseverance of Carol Finlay, as she works tirelessly to increase her plan across Canada and into the United States.

Anyone who also loves books has learned that books can transform one’s life, which is true for the inmates, too. The males are changed with the books and subsequently, the men modification Ann. This encounter allowed her to move beyond her placement as a sufferer. Indeed, the experience was so shifting that she found realize given the decision, she’d forsake the company of her privileged close friends and their comfy book club, and make both hour get to Collins Bay.