I smile at the officer. “Thank you,” I say. I take a deep breath and step out into the sunlight, where already I can feel my body shaking off the chill of the building, welcoming the warmth of the outside air.
Author’s Note and Acknowledgments:
This story began its life as a secret side project—a sort of basement science lab in which I could run a little storytelling experiment. My previous novels, The Kingdom of Childhood and Heaven Should Fall, each took readers on a journey from the United States to Germany or Afghanistan, into the minds and memories of many different characters. What would happen, I wondered, if I took one woman, set her down in a single, beige-walled building, and locked the doors? Could I even tell her story, or did I need a bigger canvas and shinier paint on which to tell any story at all?
Clara Mattingly is not meant to represent the average prisoner, although I doubt the reality of an “average prisoner” exists at all. With her physical circumstances I worked to be reasonably accurate, although I took creative license in some areas, such as the common rules of visitation. In the portrayal of her experience of abuse and rape, however, I took care to tell a story that reflects reality for many survivors like her. When Clara speaks to some aspect of her experience that is particularly unsettling, rest assured that I added no detail without bountiful research and firsthand accounts from those who have been there.
I am deeply thankful to the many friends, colleagues, and readers who helped bring this story to publication. To my agent Stephany Evans and my editor Nicole Brebner, as well as Susan Swinwood and the entire team at MIRA, thank you so much for your support and expert advice. Fellow writers Amanda Miller, Barbara Claypole White, Anne Hite, Allison Leotta, Kathleen McCleary, and Jassy Mackenzie have offered invaluable critiques and support, along with Mollie Weiner, Laura Wilcott, Hillary Myers, Elizabeth Gardner, Jalin Sopkowicz, Kathy Gaertner, Laura Carns, Ilene Hellman, Kimberly Algeri-Wong, Christine Barakat, and Stephanie Roden, to whom this book is dedicated. I’m grateful to author Johnny Shaw for introducing me to the Imperial Valley and all its creative possibilities. To create these characters, particularly Ricky, I would have been at a loss without the inspiration of Matt Holland and Jamie Casey, to whom the T-shirt slogan “Careful, or you’ll end up in my novel,” is no longer quite as funny. Many thanks to both of you.
Finally, I would like to thank family—my husband and children, my mother and fellow writer Randi Anderson, and my extended family with Leslie and Tony While. And last but not at all least, I would like to thank the Feminist Mormon Housewives for creating a sisterhood of support for women, including sexual abuse victims and women estranged from their families. All of you make the world a better place.
Other books by Rebecca Coleman
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About the Author
Rebecca Coleman is the critically acclaimed author of Heaven Should Fall and The Kingdom of Childhood, which was a semifinalist in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel competition. A native New Yorker, Rebecca now lives and works near Washington, D.C. Visit her website, http://www.rebeccacoleman.net/.
Copyright
eISBN: 978-1-4592-3907-4
INSIDE THESE WALLS
Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Coleman
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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