The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison by Mikita Brottman

Jun 17, 2016 Darlene rated it liked it

When I began reading The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison by Mikita Brottman, I thought I would be reading a book memoir of sorts, but it turns out that wasn't exactly what I found. This book IS a memoir but it is the story of Mikita Brottman and her experiences moderating a book club at Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) located outside Baltimore, Maryland. Mikita Brottman, an Oxford educated professor of literature, was on sabbatical from teaching When I began reading The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison by Mikita Brottman, I thought I would be reading a book memoir of sorts, but it turns out that wasn't exactly what I found. This book IS a memoir but it is the story of Mikita Brottman and her experiences moderating a book club at Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) located outside Baltimore, Maryland. Mikita Brottman, an Oxford educated professor of literature, was on sabbatical from teaching undergraduates at the Maryland Institute College of Art and decided that she wanted to bring literature to the men in the prison. This book was the summary of her experiences and impressions of moderating the book club for two years.

The book ended up being a mixed bag for me. I loved Ms. Brottman's idea... the idea of taking part in a book club for prisoners is an interesting and fascinating one. My excitement quickly faded, however, when reading of the reality of this prison book club. The book club was comprised of 9 men, chosen by a 53-year-old prisoner named Vincent. Vincent had earned a GED and an undergraduate degree in political science and sociology during his incarceration. For years, he had been the overseer of the college program at JCI. Although college courses were still being taught at the prison, they were no longer for credit since Congress had eliminated Pell Grants for prisoners as part of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, effectively ending higher education in prisons. The nine men chosen by Vincent for the book club were selected because of their literacy and absence of behavioral problems.

From the beginning, I realized that the terms 'book club' or 'reading group' was a misnomer. Ms. Brottman stated that she "wanted to teach a different kind of student.. a student that was immersed in the type of human struggle that resulted in conflict and often serious consequences." Her statement left me wondering if, from the beginning, she and the men in her group were approaching the literature and the subsequent discussions with two very different sets of expectations... and it didn't take long to answer this question. Although the literature group was NOT for college credit, I believe Ms. Brottman approached the group as if she was teaching her typical undergraduates and was set on teaching them an appreciation for and the ability to think critically about works of literature. I'm not so certain that the men who joined her group saw the group in the same way and ultimately, I think this created different expectations on both sides, which often led to annoyance and frustration.

Ms. Brottman chose ten dark, challenging classics, filled with moral conflicts and struggles and she wondered if the prisoners would recognize themselves in any of the characters. She chose Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'; Robert Louis Stevenson's 'Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde'; Edgar Allan Poe's story,'The Black Cat'; Vladimir Nabokov's 'Lolita'; Charles Bukowski's 'Ham on Rye' and William S. Burrough's 'Junkie:Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict'.... among other titles. Ms. Brottman quickly recognized that the men were not exactly enjoying most of her book choices. Many of the men found the books boring and pointless and it was obvious that the men were struggling with the language. Ms. Brottman realized that although she had taken to reading at a young age and had enjoyed reading her entire life, the men she was interacting with came from different backgrounds and reading was not an activity the men had engaged in for enjoyment. To be clear, not all of the men in the group disliked every book. As in any book group, some enjoyed some books but not others. Two of the book choices seemed particularly popular... 'Ham on Rye' by Charles Bukowski and 'Junkie' by William S. Burroughs. The men found these stories entertaining and relatable and these books generated lively discussions.

Often, I was painfully aware of a kind of defiant stand-off or battle of wills that was playing out between Ms. Brottman and the prison book group. The more bored and frustrated the men seemed to become with the chosen books, the more Ms. Brottman seemed to push them into trying to identify with a character or consequences of a moral quandary... to no avail. And I have to admit that as the book went on, I was becoming amazed by her seeming lack of insight into these men and their lives. Although she claimed to be aware of the conditions win the prison... constant surveillance and observation, noisy and chaotic.. she didn't seem to REALLY understand that prison life was perhaps not conducive to self-examination and the development of deep self-awareness. She commented to the men that she enjoyed settling into a comfortable chair with a book and a glass of wine or cup of tea and reading for hours. Did she really not comprehend that there ARE no comfortable chairs or even the ability to sit quietly and read for hours in the prison?

Amazingly, just as I was tempted to give up on this book entirely, Mikita Brottman was struck by a dawning dawning recognition and awareness. This flash of insight occurred as they were wrapping up their discussion of 'Lolita' by Vladimir Nabokov. The reading and discussion of this novel had been particularly contentious. The prisoners despised the main character Humbert Humbert and would only refer to him as a pedophile. Ms. Brottman, feeling annoyed with their inability to view the story and the character in any positive way finally exploded... she told them that she was shocked at their inability to feel sympathy for Humbert Humbert as she believed that "anyone who engages with 'Lolita' has to understand that a story of what is technically termed sexual molestation can also be a deeply moving love story." Charles, one of the group members was equally eloquent and vehement in his response... "This isn't a love story. Get rid of all the fancy language, bring it down to the lowest common denominator and it's a grown man molesting a little girl....."

This emotional and honest exchange between Ms. Brottman and Charles ended up rescuing this book for me. Finally... on her way home from the prison that day, Ms. Brottman realized what the men had been trying to tell her.... "...and I, with my weakness for a fancy prose style, had fallen into Nabokov's trap and could see Lolita only through Humbert's eyes, as his invention, his nymphet. I could not make sense of or see her, as the prisoners did, as a little girl in her won right.. all the time this was leading me further and further away from the main fact of the matter: Lolita's pain."

I believe that what Ms. Brottman realized that day was that the prisoners in her reading group were not skilled at or impressed with the language or lofty themes of the literature she had chosen. They were not and would never be her typical class of undergraduates. They were men who had been convicted of serious crimes and had lost their ability to make the simplest choices for themselves who simply wanted to read stories that entertained or distracted them from the monotony of their lives. I had a lot of sympathy for Mikita Brottman. I believed she approached organizing this book group with only the best of intentions. I also believe that what she wanted for this group of men was to give them a way to experience comfort and perhaps redemption through great works of literature; but as someone who has volunteered for many groups and organizations over my lifetime, I have realized that volunteering can seem an awful lot like parenting.... give it your all and do your best but most of all, keep expectations in check.

Ultimately, I think Mikita Brottman did come to a more comfortable acceptance of her role and the the role of literature in the prisoners' lives. Two of the prisoners... Vincent and Steven.. were released from prison and she had the opportunity to meet up with both men. Although she felt disappointed, she realized .... "My Vincent and my Steven existed only in a certain time and space. They were phantoms that disappeared upon exposure to daylight .... Once back amidst the practical concerns of daily life, neither had the slightest interest in reading or talking about books. This, I now knew, would be equally true for all the men who were released. I was not turning them into readers. They were just men who attended the prison book club." ...more

flag 36 likes · Like · see review

Aug 21, 2016 Holly rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2016-reads

Oh boy. Before I started reading this I saw the other GR reviews by several readers who were irritated with the author and disappointed with the book. I just assumed that I would have a different reaction: I've read most of the works selected for this prison book club, and I'll understand Brottman's role, and I'm not put off by troubling material. But I too had all the trouble with the author and the book-club project that the rest of you did. Sorry this is not succinct:

Brottman is a white Oh boy. Before I started reading this I saw the other GR reviews by several readers who were irritated with the author and disappointed with the book. I just assumed that I would have a different reaction: I've read most of the works selected for this prison book club, and I'll understand Brottman's role, and I'm not put off by troubling material. But I too had all the trouble with the author and the book-club project that the rest of you did. Sorry this is not succinct:

Brottman is a white British-born academic who volunteers to coordinate and lead a weekly book club at a maximum-security men's prison in Maryland. The 9-10 members of the group were chosen by a fellow prisoner (note: the incarcerated men do not like the term "inmate"), who gave no apparent consideration to the men's prior education levels or minimal reading abilities. Some fall asleep in book group, many don't complete that week's reading. The only thing this book club shares with the rigorous college-in-prison programs I recently read about is the long waiting list to join. But each of the men has a distinctive point of view, and Brottman is successful at drawing them as individuals.

The group gets off to a rocky start when she asks them to read Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the men find it bleak, boring, and difficult to read. She regrets the decision to ask them to read a novella that she, too, had found difficult the first time she read it. Then she goes on to select works such as Bartleby the Scrivener, Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a Bukowski (Ham on Rye), William S. Burroughs's Junkie about heroin addiction, a Poe story about animal cruelty and obsession, Shakespeare's Macbeth, and prison novel (Braly's On the Yard). She comes to regret every one for one reason or another. And so did I: these choices made me cringe; they were terrible for this group and this setting. It's not that I wished she had chosen "safer" books, or morally uplifting literature, but that these are difficult and bleak, sometimes without hope, and sadistic reading for men already required to stare at brick walls all day. And why no female authors or even a challenging female character or two? I might have added some Flannery O'Connor short stories, or Carson McCuller's Heart is a Lonely Hunter, or Grace Paley stories, Andre Dubus's "A Father's Story" - I can think of so many. And I would re-read them before making a final selection, which Brottman did not do.

The problem is that Brottman is tone-deaf. She chose these works because SHE loves them and because she is fascinated with the dark side in these stories. She didn't consider the men's daily routines and bleakness of their lives, but she's curious about what the prisoners might make of the books, because she wants to understand THEIR dark sides. She's also tone deaf in her lack of insight into their reading abilities, and I think that is rotten teaching: she gets irritated with how slowly they read aloud - sounding out words, stumbling over pronunciation and syntax. And irritated with their tendencies to over-identify with narrators, with not grasping the larger points, and with reading for plot and character alone, but without appreciation of the language.

So, I was uneasy while reading most of the book, suspecting that the next book she introduced would finally be the one that was so inappropriate that something irrevocably sad or painful for the men would occur. I was concerned for them.

And then she selected LOLITA.

Dear god. When the men become immediately hostile to Humbert Humbert and sympathize and with the young Dolores against this predator, Brottman is actually angry. No, no - she insists to the men's faces - "you don't understand! It's a love story." But the men won't have it. They say HH is a liar and they claim to see through him - (I thought we all recognized this by now - I don't hear that crap about it being "a love story" anymore. Did Brottman never get the message? The novel is genius but part of what makes it genius is the moral challenge of falling under the spell of the unreliable narrator's brilliance. And that all that astonishing language is being used by a character who is sick. And it is about pedophilia.) Here again Brottman was painfully tone-deaf and myopic. This is a men's prison, where pedophiles are the most hated subgroup, and many of the men are fathers of daughters, and as she knows by this point, they read everything as personal.
--
I think the thing to recognize about Maximum Security Book Club is that this is a book about the author herself, not about the incarcerated men or the prison system or even really, the books discussed. And it's a compelling but exasperating and frustrating read. ...more

flag 36 likes · Like · see review

Nov 19, 2016 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it did not like it

Shelves: books-on-books, did-not-finish, read2016

Well I was interested in a prison book club but this is more of a white savior narrative and I just can't stomach it ever but especially right now.

The professor is from the UK but teaching in an American prison, and seems completely perplexed as to why the prisoners can't appreciate her picks like Bartleby the Scrivener and Heart of Darkness. She gets annoyed when they talk, in their book club, about how their lives connect with the book. I'm not sure what she was hoping for, maybe an "Oh ...more

flag 32 likes · Like · see review

Sep 10, 2016 Julie rated it it was ok

Never trust a person who insists Lolita is a love story.

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Jan 07, 2016 Erin Boyington rated it it was ok

Shelves: librarianship, prison

This was a book I was curious to read the moment I heard of it, and at the same time hesitant to get into. Fortunately, getting it through interlibrary loan and having a time limit really helps with my motivation. I work in a prison library, and I make an effort to separate myself from anything work-related in my regular life. (That's why after all these years I still haven't gotten into Orange is the New Black or bothered to watch Shawshank Redemption. Too much prison!)

But I did choose to read ...more

flag 15 likes · Like · see review

Jul 05, 2016 Karen Lausa rated it it was ok

This was a tough book to get through, because I also facilitate book discussion groups in a maximum security prison. It was potentially intimidating to me that the author, an "Oxford educated scholar and Ph.D." was doing the same thing as me- with an MLS degree, a lifelong love of reading and a whole lot of passion. That's not the only difference between us, though.
I found the book to be flat, forced and written by someone who seems unable to understand prison culture, healthy boundaries and the ...more

flag 12 likes · Like · see review

Nov 30, 2015 Amy rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2015

I'm not entirely sure why she'd be disappointed when they didn't share her love for some of these, when she, who loves literature, took more than one reading to get into them.

flag 8 likes · Like · see review

Jul 03, 2016 JoAnn rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

I absolutely loved this book, The Maximum Security Book Club, Reading Literature in a Men’s Prison, by Mikita Brottman, an Oxford educated scholar who teaches humanities at Maryland Institute of the Arts (MICA). With my passion for literature and my background of teaching Literature and Language Arts in high schools with a high at-risk population, I was able to really connect with the author and what she was trying to accomplish. Dr. Mikita Brottman presents a completely candid approach to I absolutely loved this book, The Maximum Security Book Club, Reading Literature in a Men’s Prison, by Mikita Brottman, an Oxford educated scholar who teaches humanities at Maryland Institute of the Arts (MICA). With my passion for literature and my background of teaching Literature and Language Arts in high schools with a high at-risk population, I was able to really connect with the author and what she was trying to accomplish. Dr. Mikita Brottman presents a completely candid approach to teaching literature with all of its ups, downs, distractions, protocols and sense of humanity. However, her class room is in Jessup Correctional Institution in Maryland, and her students are inmates. Brottman does this on a voluntary base. With a group of convicts, once a week, she reads, what many may say is highbrow Literature with disheartening, complicated themes, and while I don’t completely agree with all of her choices, I believe she choose novels with rich challenging human experiences to foster thought and conversation with the men. For the most park, the men rose to the occasion, although maybe not completely as Brottman would have liked, and she is quick to admit where she could have done something different/better, as she reflects back on her actions for each novel.

The book ultimately ends with a bittersweet reflection on how Brottman doesn’t create the impact she had hoped in her students, something a teacher, perhaps, particular of literate, may relate to, as I certainly did. I don’t want to give too much away; however, over all, I truly admire Brottman for giving these men the opportunity to challenge themselves, to step out of their stereotype, to discuss, to think, to broaden their experiences. Although especially at the end, Brottman is hard on herself because she believes she, “lost them” and because “literature was all [she] had,” I image, in some ways, she made a bigger impact on these men than she realizes.

I hope that Dr. Brottman continues this program and doesn’t get too discouraged by focusing on the end result of sharing literate as a means of “saving” the inmates. Yes the men committed horrible crimes, but they are human and if nothing else, Brottman is connecting to their humanity: gather, read, discuss, talk, enjoy. Take it for what is worth in the moment, Dr. Bottman. In my years of teaching, often when a meaningful conversation about literature takes place, although it may not be life saving, the essences of that conversation, the lesson/theme learn is recalled when needed. I have has some students tell me so.

I don’t think this book is for everyone, but I couldn’t put it down. Each chapter is set up according to which novel is being read, and I couldn’t wait to read about the next. I found The Maximum Security Book Club, Reading Literature in a Men’s Prison interesting, engaging, even inspiring, as I of lately have been very interested in teaching at a prison. I can also highly recommend Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard

...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Sep 26, 2016 Kathrina rated it liked it

Shelves: lock-up

I don't have the time to give this review what I should, but suffice it to say, this is a book about an English teacher, not a book about a prison book group. While she does struggle through some issues I can identify with (as a prison book group facilitator myself), this book privileges her and her relationship with literature, not her students or their collective experience. She makes some "well-duh" revelations that, had she done her own homework, might have been more obvious to her, but at ...more

flag 6 likes · Like · see review

Jun 02, 2016 Megan rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, female-author, crime, books-about-books, sad, depressing, violence, pretentious, prison, culture

I'm giving this four stars even though I had some problems with it. This is because I love and will read almost anything about prison and people's lives in prison. I think more people should be educated and concerned about how prisons are run, what function they truly serve, and what 'kind' (for lack of a better word) of people are in prison and why. Even if the only reason for this concern is that this is your tax dollars at work. We can start there and maybe hope for some empathy later.

...more

flag 5 likes · Like · see review

Feb 06, 2016 Laura rated it did not like it

If you want to know how the author feels about the books she reads with these men, and how they disappointed her by having lives that didn't fully revolve around the books she loved, then read this book. The last paragraph in the afterword made me want to throw this book across the room it was so self absorbed. What a letdown.

flag 4 likes · Like · see review

Apr 03, 2018 Biblio Curious rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: bio-memoir, bookish-books, bunny-slipper-reads, non-fiction

Leaky pipes & re-arranging the house to prevent water damage paired with "may as well do some spring cleaning" is great for audiobooks. Listening to this insightful author constantly misjudge the inmates is every bit as wonderful as seeing a clean house come together. She's intelligent with a literary background. She begins her narrative with her own experiences teaching college students about the classics. When she decides to volunteer at this prison, her program limits the attendees to ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jun 26, 2016 Phyllis rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction, book-club, memoir, language-reading, sociology, prison

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The idea behind the book club and hearing stories about each of the men who participated are what qualify this book to receive two stars, in my opinion.

However, the author, despite having a PH.D. and years of teaching experience, is the absolute wrong person to be running a book club for prisoners.

A good leader Mikita Brottman is not, not just for being completely unaware (and unwilling to learn) about the conditions in which her book club members live, waiting nearly 3 years to tour the The idea behind the book club and hearing stories about each of the men who participated are what qualify this book to receive two stars, in my opinion.

However, the author, despite having a PH.D. and years of teaching experience, is the absolute wrong person to be running a book club for prisoners.

A good leader Mikita Brottman is not, not just for being completely unaware (and unwilling to learn) about the conditions in which her book club members live, waiting nearly 3 years to tour the prison.

Her selections are outrageously insensitive; every selection is about being imprisoned literally or figuratively from "On the Yard" to "The Metamorphosis" to "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Sure, have a selection or two with that theme, but one after the other? A good leader would switch up the themes or types of selections.

A good leader would understand that each member relates to the material differently and certainly from personal frames of reference. Some of the book club members weren't voracious readers, but bravely took up each challenge.

A good leader wouldn't expect other book club members to struggle with material that the leader disliked at first and/or also struggles with. Hitting the group with "Heart of Darkness" right out of the gate is crazy; despite being short, it's densely packed and rather difficult.

A good leader from outside the prison would understand that there are boundaries that must be set and maintained, particularly as a psychoanalyst. Ms. Brottman spends some time talking about how she objectifies the men's bodies and projects certain expectations on them, then expects the men to conform to her wishes. How about maintaining boundaries after the prisoners have completed their sentences?!?

A good leader would not act put upon because she cannot bring her dog to prison.

A good leader would not expect a book club to change members' lives when part of the appeal is that the club is lead by a woman and another part is trying something different. The author ends the book feeling sorry for herself and whining that all she has is literature. ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Nov 17, 2016 Joan Hawkins rated it really liked it

Mikita Brottman is a horror scholar, lit professor and psychoanalyst who used her sabbatical one year to start a bookclub at a men's maximum security prison, near her home in Baltimore. They read everything from Heart of Darkness, to Lolita, to Lear. And the book moves in and out- weaving together Brottman's impressions of the men, her accounts of their responses to the books and her experiences of the prison itself. It's very good and much of it is fascinating. If I have a criticism, it's that ...more

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Jul 30, 2017 Leigh rated it liked it

If the author had confined herself to descriptions of the discussions of literature among the men who are incarcerated and her observations about the prison, I would have loved this book. But I found myself disliking the author herself and becoming irritated whenever she wrote about herself, her reactions, her life. Perhaps that's a function of her honesty, but my annoyance with her (and her continual insistence, over a two year period of time, that the men needed to see the works they discussed ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Oct 26, 2018 Leah rated it did not like it

I was looking forward to reading this book. I had just read a couple of less than great books and I thought this one would be a pretty easy win. Boy was I wrong

I found Mikita Brottman to be incredibly self absorbed and tone deaf to what was happening around her. For a start, she picked all the books based on her favorites not with any thought about them. She seemed to realize after picking each book and having these men to read it that she had made a horrible choice. She talked about Heart of I was looking forward to reading this book. I had just read a couple of less than great books and I thought this one would be a pretty easy win. Boy was I wrong

I found Mikita Brottman to be incredibly self absorbed and tone deaf to what was happening around her. For a start, she picked all the books based on her favorites not with any thought about them. She seemed to realize after picking each book and having these men to read it that she had made a horrible choice. She talked about Heart of Darkness but didn't discuss the racism of the book with the men because "in her opinion it wasn't about that". She read Junky with them and only realized after that reading Junky with a group of people who might have or have had drug problems isn't the best idea. But the real kicker is when she reads Lolita with them. All of these grown men have a better understanding for Lolita than she does. She tries to insist it's a love story. And that they are both in the wrong, as in the underage school girl who is seduced and raped by a middle aged man, did something wrong by having a crush. All of the men had no love for him because they all had daughters and sisters and wives and they knew people who had had similar situations. They saw through his fancy words and saw what he truly was. She was seduced by his words and tried to force these men to see the story as she did, "a love story".

In the end she learned nothing. She used these men as a study. She wanted to know their views on her favorite books so it could expand her own understanding. At the end, when some men got back to their lives and dropped reading, she was disapointed.

She seemed to be consistently disappointed in these men. For talking about the wrong things, saying it the wrong way or not seeing things as she did. And they were almost always right. She was almost always wrong.

Finally I was incredibly disappointed that her group of 9 consisted primarily of white men, with approximately 2 to 3 black men in the group. The prison is about 75% people of color and yet this group is primarily white. It seemed weird. On top of that she described 2 of the 3 black men in the group as "scary" or "intimidating" when she first describes them. She doesn't say these sorts of things about any of the white men. Some of whom are 6 ft 7 with Confederate flag tattoos. Also every time she has an issue with a guard she makes sure to inform the reader it's an "African American" guard. When she talks about a guard that is polite or nice she makes no mention of race. Seems odd.

Overall I really disliked this book. I found her prejudice in the extreme no matter what she said to convince the reader of the opposite. I found her self absorbed and judgemental. This book club wasn't impressive or good. It was a way to spend time in prison. But she has no reason to pay herself on the back, which is what she does during most of this book. If anything the men were significantly more impressive than she was. They were more insightful, more interesting and overall had a better understanding of these stories. ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 18, 2016 Patty rated it liked it

Shelves: 2016, non-fiction, prisons, ebook, women-writers, books-and-reading, books-about-books, classic-literature, book-clubs

I will add a quote when the book is published.

I picked this memoir up because it is about a book club. I think discussion groups can be transforming. I am always interested in how books make changes in the people who read them. I assumed that Brottman would be showing her readers the huge impact book clubs can make in a prison.

My supposition was naïve. I should have known better. I have met men in jail and they did not seem positively changed by the books they read. Why did I expect better from ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 04, 2016 Lissa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: edelweiss

4.5 stars. This author has spent several years teaching classes inside a maximum security prison outside of Baltimore and also organized a book club for a smaller group of men in order to focus in on particular books. The books she chose to write about include Heart of Darkness, Lolita, Junkie, and other shorter stories. The men in the group range in age and race but are all violent offenders. I thought this book a fascinating mix of book critique and exploration into prison life. The men ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 27, 2017 JustKate rated it it was amazing

For me, this book had insight on a slice of society that I might never know if not for this book. It really opened my eyes to new people and new experiences. Stories about people who do scary things in spite of them being hard really impress me. I really liked how, as a teacher, she tried to help her students understand the intent behind the words they were reading but because the students came from such disparate backgrounds from her, those words took on different meanings. Two sides of the ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 11, 2016 Julie rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, books-about-books, 2016

I think I might have liked this book better if I had read any of the books that Brottman's book club read. I found the depiction of the regimented lives of the prisoners incredibly depressing, and I was struck by Brottman's naive belief that the book club would make permanent changes in the lives of the prisoners she worked with. It seemed that participating was a way to escape the boredom of their lives for a brief time each week and nothing more.

The book is a sad commentary on the ills ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 18, 2016 Steve rated it really liked it

Really enjoyed the book. Really liked her descriptions of the prison, the convicts, the guards - and also her comments about the books themselves and most of all her reactions to it all. A very good writer!

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 19, 2016 Chrissie rated it liked it

Quick read that ended a bit abruptly. I agree with another reviewer who wondered why the author was surprised that the men had trouble getting into books she herself didn't appreciate the first time she read them.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 31, 2016 Kate rated it did not like it

Disappointing. As an educator myself, I was appalled by how much this narrative focused on the narrator's self-importance (and her subsequent disappointment in how her men reacted to the literature.) We can do so much better--as educators, as readers, and as writers.

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 07, 2019 Paul Manytravels rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: general-non-fiction, thought-provoking, non-fiction, lgbt

Outside of America’s political system, the misnamed “Criminal Justice System” is the nation’s most broken institution. In aggregate, states and the federal government spend upwards of $100 billion each year to punish people who have broken laws and call the punishment “rehabilitation” or “correction.” Any institution with an 82% failure rate such as the incarceration system does simply is not working.
Brottman’s book traces her experience inside on of these institutions. She meets with nine ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 22, 2019 Patricia rated it liked it

This was written by a British lady who volunteered to do a book club with some prisoners in a Baltimore prison. I found myself shocked at how out of touch she was. Perhaps if she had chosen some different books, it might have generated something more thought-provoking. I did go into this thinking maybe I'd find some further reading recommendations myself, but the first two books she had the prisoners read did not come across as anything remotely appealing, and I enjoy reading. It's no surprise ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

May 17, 2019 Penelope rated it liked it

Rather sheltered teacher tries to share her love of literature with hardened convicts. More of an insight into the complex psychology of the teacher than the value of trying to enlighten convicts with literature. Hope this is a wake up call for women who romanticize the true nature of the life long criminal.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jan 03, 2018 Kathleen Nalley rated it liked it

Shelves: 2018-books

I was interested in the descriptions of people and places while unimpressed with author’s choice of books for her book discussions.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Aug 22, 2016 Kater Cheek rated it liked it

I think I may have hit my saturation point for books about people talking about books, and this is only the third I have read (the others being The Jane Austen Book Club and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress). Yet, I still liked it, which basically meant that there was a lot more to this book than just the novels they were discussing. So if you're going to write your own book about a book club, make sure there's something there besides just the literature.

This book is about literature, I think I may have hit my saturation point for books about people talking about books, and this is only the third I have read (the others being The Jane Austen Book Club and Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress). Yet, I still liked it, which basically meant that there was a lot more to this book than just the novels they were discussing. So if you're going to write your own book about a book club, make sure there's something there besides just the literature.

This book is about literature, but it's also about the men in this maximum security book club. Prison literature is not a subgenre I've read widely in, so I liked reading something that broadened the narrow path illuminated by Shawshank Redemption and Orange is the New Black and the book that show was based on. Mikita is drawn to these men, and empathizes with their plight. I didn't feel as much of a connection. I didn't feel as if I really got to know enough about these men to overcome the gulf of difference between their lives and backgrounds and values and my own.

Mikita hints that she knows the reason most of them join the book club was out of a combination of a profound sense of boredom and because they happily look at any woman they can. Life in prison, you have to agree, is pretty awful, and any diversion from the soul-deadening monotony must be welcome. But this sympathy didn't really make me want to like them. To quote Melville in Bartleby the Scrivener, one of the books they cover, "So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not."

Let me make a confession: I have an intrinsic mistrust of anything described as LITERATURE. All of the great white dead men classics were forced down my throat in high school, and it cultivated a revulsion that has taken decades to dissipate. I read HEART OF DARKNESS at the age of 16 and found it tedious and confusing, and it was heartening to find that the men found problematic as well. Brottman's enthusiasm and love of the same book I found tortuous felt like going to a really terrible restaurant with a friend and watching them gush about how awesome it is that you're eating this amazing food with such a cool vibe, and you pick up your greasy fried lump and look around at the threadbare carpet in a beige room full of cranky old people and wonder what they're seeing that you're not. I wonder if LITERATURE is like nasty bitter beer that you only like after 20 years of drinking increasingly bitter beer until you start to associate unpleasantness with high-quality. If you have to re-read a book several times to like it, does that mean that it's better, or just that it's inaccessible? And why re-read a book you dislike, when there are hundreds of thousands of other books you haven't even opened? Is she an enlightened aesthete, or just a slightly masochistic pedant who wants to impress people with her taste? This question haunts me. Brottman is like that one person in every club I've ever been in who is so much more gung-ho about it than everyone else and kind of intimidates people with her passion (to be fair, once or twice I have been that person.) I love books, but LITERATURE and I have had an uneasy relationship. I wonder sometimes if the surest and most reliable way to take an avid reader and turn them into someone who hates reading is to give them inaccessible books, imply that they are the best the world has to offer, and force them to read them and then discuss them ad nauseum. It works for me. So I was curious how these men would feel about reading these books. Would they hate them too? Turns out, mostly they did.

With Nabakov, I also sided with the prisoners. Brottman loved Lolita, which I read recently and enjoyed, but Brottman sees it as a love story first and foremost, and is aghast when the men merely see Humbert as a fancy-talking pervert. I sided with them on this, that it's hard to feel sympathy and pity for a man who is preying upon the very type of girl you yourself desperately want to protect.

The other books I hadn't read, so I couldn't really relate to the story at the same level. In general, they felt less sympathy and pity for other people, probably because their own lives were and had been so hard. I liked the stories of the assignments she gave them, like when they had to write letters to the sister of the guy who turned into a cockroach in Kafka's Metamorphosis. It seemed as though the men were really getting into the books, and I shared Brottman's delight. And then I shared her disappointment, as she learns that their love of literature exists only within the confines of the prison. Alas, the story of a woman who gets her heart broken when she tries to make a connection with a man locked up in prison is a well-worn trope, though usually literature isn't the vehicle. ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Sep 13, 2018 Aj rated it liked it

This book offers another perspective on the trope of "I taught Shakespeare/reading/art/yoga in a prison and both the prisoners' lives and mine changed for the better." There is no world-changing, inspiring ending - more of a realistic one. Honestly, I thought her book choices were a big part of the issue. Nevertheless, some small, interesting connections and revelations are fostered between the prisoners and the books.

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Oct 14, 2016 Sam Sattler rated it liked it

Shelves: books-on-books, sociology

Mikita Brottman’s The Maximum Security Book Club recounts the author’s experiences in running a book club inside Maryland’s Jessup Correctional Institution for three years. During those years, the club membership was capped at nine prisoners plus Brottman, with the membership slowly evolving over time as prisoners were released or dropped out of the club for other reasons such as medical problems.

Brottman, who is British, begins the book with a description of her upbringing by parents “with Mikita Brottman’s The Maximum Security Book Club recounts the author’s experiences in running a book club inside Maryland’s Jessup Correctional Institution for three years. During those years, the club membership was capped at nine prisoners plus Brottman, with the membership slowly evolving over time as prisoners were released or dropped out of the club for other reasons such as medical problems.

Brottman, who is British, begins the book with a description of her upbringing by parents “with little respect for the law.” Both her parents began their adult lives as teachers, a job her father would suffer for twenty years while fighting the system from within. Her mother was more quickly “radicalized and enlightened,” eventually even to joining the local Communist Party. Brottman, as a result, says that she has long been fascinated by people considered by society to be unworthy of inclusion. But whether or not she would ever admit it, Brottman was naïve about prison life and prisoners when she began the book club, and only a little less naïve about it all after running the club for three years.

Most of the men who joined the book club saw it as an escape from the monotony of their daily lives, a place where they could relax in a peaceful setting and converse with fellow prisoners (of different races, gang affiliations, etc.) in a manner they could do in no other part of the prison setting. With perhaps two or three exceptions, most of these men could barely read, yet Brottman somehow increased their reading skills by handing them a reading list that some colleges might envy.

Over a three year period, the book club read and discussed these ten works:

1. Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
2. “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” (Herman Melville)
3. Ham on Rye (Charles Bukowski)
4. Junkie (William S. Burroughs)
5. On the Yard ( Malcolm Braly)
6. Macbeth (William Shakespeare)
7. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Lewis Stevenson)
8. “The Black Cat” (Edgar Allan Poe)
9. The Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
10. Lolita (Vladimir Nabokov)

Brottman hoped that the group would relate to her literary choices, and they often did, especially when the book or story related to their own experiences (Ham on Rye, Junkie, On the Yard, etc.) or dealt with topics such as murder and betrayal (“The Black Cat, Macbeth, etc.). But her shock at the prisoners’ unanimous disgust with the protagonist of Lolita only illustrates her naiveté when it comes to understanding the mindset of the men she was trying to help.
The Maximum Security Book Club is interesting despite, and because of, the missteps that Brottman inadvertently reveals about how she ran the prison book club from month to month. Her decision to make Lolita a book club selection is only one example of what she did wrong. The author also allowed herself to believe that the men she worked with always behaved the way they behaved in her classroom, and this led her to a dangerous bending of the common sense rules that were in place for her protection. She became particularly close to two or three of the prisoners, even to giving them her personal email address and phone number and loaning them money after their release. And, perhaps because of her childhood, she often saw the prison staff as her enemy rather than as a group of people there to keep her and the inmates safe. But the prison book club has to be considered a success because it raised the reading comprehension skills of the overall group, increased the self-confidence of the prisoners who took it seriously, and eased the monotony of their time in prison.

Bottom Line: The Maximum Security Book Club offers an interesting look at a group of men in a setting in which one would least expect to find them. Brottman does a good job introducing the members of the club to the reader and letting them be themselves – even if she sometimes fails to recognize exactly who they are when they leave her classroom.
...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review