Visiting Life: Women Doing Time on the Outside

by Bridget Kinsella

I forget how I found this book, but it was something I stumbled on while looking for something interesting to read. Bridget Kinsella is an editor for Publisher's Weekly, and Visiting Life is a memoir about her relationship with Rory, an inmate of Pelican Bay Prison who is serving a life sentence for murder. She first meets Rory when a collegue sends his manuscript to her for publishing advice. She decides to meet him and they develop a relationship, the unique kind of relationship that can only develop on the opposite sides of prison bars. Love without sex. During her visits with Rory, Bridget meets other women who have men, husbands and sons, on the inside and write about their stories. Many of the women have been abused in their childhoods, and Bridget finds that it is easier for these women to fall in love with men who are safely behind bars, only communicating in letters and short visits. Bridget discovers healing from a painful divorce through Rory's devotion to her and is able to grow and develop because of her "angel" in an unlikely place.