Shakespeare Saved My Life
Shakespeare Saved My Life book cover

Shakespeare Saved My Life

Paperback – April 2, 2013

by
Price
$16.79
Format
Paperback
Pages
291
Publisher
Sourcebooks
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1402273148
Dimensions
5.25 x 0.76 x 8 inches
Weight
12.5 ounces

Description

From Booklist From breaking out to breaking through, that’s what reading Shakespeare did for Indiana federal prison inmate Larry Newton, who was locked in solitary confinement for more than 10 years. His story is recounted by English professor Bates, who taught the “Shakespeare in Shackles” class that gave Newton, convicted of murder as a teenager, his new lease on life. Bates describes the program, but the core of the text is given over to Newton as he poses challenging questions from Shakespeare’s works about such topics as honor, revenge, and conscience, forcing prisoners to consider their own actions in a new light. Macbeth and Hamlet are the primary targets of examination, but the inmates take fresh approaches to several plays. The short chapters are like Bates’ glimpses into the cells through cuff boxes. It’s clear she is impressed with Larry, and while his work is remarkable, it’s also repetitive. But the journey he makes and the impact it has on Bates herself combine to form a powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances. --Bridget Thoreson "Wonderful… well written, easy to follow, and hard to put down. My hope is that this book will make people understand that education can change lives." ― Sue Jones, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA "This is an amazing story, beautifully told...I'm still reeling from the power of the ending." ― Anne McMahon, Boswell Book Company, Milwaukee WI "A transformative journey for students and teacher alike. ... An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline and the Bard of Avon." ― Kirkus Reviews " Shakespeare Saved My Life touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account." ― Shelf Awareness "Readers will find much to be inspired by and optimistic about in Bates’s book" ― PopMatters "You don’t have to be a William Shakespeare fan, a prisoner, or a prison reformer to appreciate this uplifting book. " Shakespeare Saved My Life " also reveals many important truths ... about the meaning of empathy in our dealings with others" ― Finger Lakes Times Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. CHAPTER 1 Favorite Freakin’ Shakespeare Oh, man, this is my favorite freakin’ quote!” What professor wouldn’t like to hear a student enthuse so much over a Shakespeare play―a Shakespeare history play, no less! And then to be able to flip open the two-thousand-page Complete Works of Shakespeare and find the quote immediately: “When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound”! He smacks the book as he finishes reading. Meanwhile, I’m still scrambling to find the quote somewhere in Henry the Fourth, Part One. “Act uh…?” “Act 5, scene 4,” my student informs me, again smacking the page with his enthusiastic fist. “Oh, man, that is crazy!” Yes, this is crazy: I am sitting side-by-side with a prisoner who has just recently been allowed to join the general prison population after more than ten years in solitary confinement. We met three years prior, in 2003, when I created the first-ever Shakespeare program in a solitary confinement unit, and we spent three years working together in that unit. Now we have received unprecedented permission to work together, alone, unsupervised, to create a series of Shakespeare workbooks for prisoners. Newton is gesticulating so animatedly that it draws the attention of an officer walking by our little classroom. He pops his head inside. “Everything okay in here?” he asks. “Just reading Shakespeare,” I reply. He shakes his head and walks on. “That is crazy!” Newton repeats, his head still in the book. A record ten and a half consecutive years in solitary confinement, and he’s not crazy, he’s not dangerous―he’s reading Shakespeare. And maybe, just maybe, it is because he’s reading Shakespeare that he is not crazy, or dangerous. Read more

Features & Highlights

  • A female professor, a super maximum security prisoner, and how Shakespeare saved them both
  • Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before―supermax solitary confinement.
  • In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars.
  • A testament to the power of literature,
  • Shakespeare Saved My Life
  • is a remarkable memoir. Fans of
  • Orange is the New Black
  • (Piper Kerman),
  • A Place to Stand
  • (Jimmy Baca) and
  • I Couldn't Help Myself
  • (Wally Lamb) will be be inspired by the story of the most unlikely friendship, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years―a friendship that would, in the end, save more than one life.
  • What readers are saying about
  • Shakespeare Saved My Life
  • :
  • "I was tremendously moved by both the potential impact of Shakespeare and learning on human beings and the story of this one man."
  • "This is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read."
  • "I have never read a book that touched me as much as this memoir."
  • "It is a challenging and remarkable story."
  • "I loved this book so much. It changed my life."
  • What reviewers are saying about
  • Shakespeare Saved My Life
  • :
  • "You don't have to be a William Shakespeare fan, a prisoner, or a prison reformer to appreciate this uplifting book. "
  • Shakespeare Saved My Life
  • " also reveals many important truths ... about the meaning of empathy in our dealings with others"―
  • Finger Lake Times
  • "
  • Shakespeare Saved My Life
  • touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account."―
  • Shelf Awareness
  • "Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective ... brave, groundbreaking work"―
  • Publishers Weekly
  • "An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline, and the Bard of Avon."―
  • Kirkus
  • "A powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances."―
  • Booklist

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(303)
★★★★
25%
(252)
★★★
15%
(151)
★★
7%
(71)
★
23%
(232)

Most Helpful Reviews

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Completely changed how I read Shakespeare!

My first reaction when I saw this book was, "Great, EVERYONE is reading Shakespeare before I do. Even people in solitary confinement!" I'd recently decided to read all of Shakespeare's plays in a year and I was finding it slow going. But the prisoners that Laura Bates described in this book seemed to breeze through the plays, even if they had limited education and no previous knowledge of the bard. If they could do it, what the hell was my excuse?

Once I got past my petty jealousy, this book spoke to me on a lot of levels. Laura Bates is an English professor who has been teaching Shakespeare for years, both in colleges and in prisons. This book recounts her experiences with the latter, particularly in a supermax--or solitary confinement--unit. A great number of my family members work in corrections, including in prisons, and I myself had helped start a writing and spoken word program at a women's prison here in Nova Scotia. So I didn't need to be convinced of the value of prisoner education. And, as I mentioned, I'd recently started a Shakespeare in a Year project in which I was attempting to read the Complete Works of Shakespeare (or at the very least the plays) before the end of the year. So I didn't need to be convinced of the value of Shakespeare.

Still, this book surprised me in a lot of ways.

The thing that struck me most about Laura Bates' experiences teaching Shakespeare in prison was the way the inmates interpreted certain passages. Dr. Bates deliberately chose plays she thought might speak to them, plays about crime (Macbeth) or imprisonment (Richard III) or loss of power (King Lear) or violence and revenge (Titus Andronicus). Even so, the inmates' reactions to them often changed the way I myself was reading the material.

As an example, when discussing the murder of King Duncan in Macbeth, one part that often stumps literary critics is why Macbeth is able to kill Duncan but cannot seem to complete the plan by planting the bloody daggers on the sleeping guards, implicating them. He balks at this and wanders off, forcing Lady Macbeth to complete the task. Why? I, like many critics, interpreted Macbeth's actions as evidence of doubt, of lack of conviction to the plan. Lady Macbeth, by contrast, seems like the pushier of the two in this scene ("Fine! I have to do everything myself, do I?").

But the inmates had a different interpretation:
"'He needs for her to get her hands dirty too', said the new student in the group named Bentley...When Bentley made the observation about Macbeth's need for a partner in crime, the others, all serving time for murder convictions, agreed. It is easier to bear the burden of guilt, especially of such a heavy crime, my students said, with an accomplice.
Genius.

That not only changes how I feel about that scene, it changes how I feel about the relationship between Macbeth and his wife. Is Lady Macbeth really the mastermind who pushes her husband, unwillingly, into a series of murders? Or is Macbeth pulling his wife further into their crime spree so she shares his culpability?

There are a lot of other examples of the inmates' interpretations of Shakespeare (the comparison of Titus Andronicus to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood is worth the price of admission alone) and they're all fantastic. Even if you got nothing else out of the book, these insights are more than worth the read.

Keep checking this blog for an upcoming interview with the author and a chance to win a copy of the book!

Disclaimer: I received a digital galley of this book free from the publisher from NetGalley. I was not obliged to write a favourable review, or even any review at all. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.
103 people found this helpful
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Brings a little light into an otherwise dark issue. Well worth the read!

I am in a book club comprised of professors; that is great for me, as they are generally 20 years my senior and have so much life experience and wisdom to share. That wisdom brought the club to choose this book; otherwise I would not have read it, and that would have been a loss.

How do we reach people who may believe that they have done something so horrible that they cannot be redeemed, or that nobody would understand? Shakespeare is full of characters who lack character. There are characters that anyone can relate to, whether they feel misunderstood, have done something that they are ashamed of, or fit the description of a true scoundrel. At least, through Shakespeare, we all join the human race, rather than being something "sub-human." That does not mean that being that way is celebrated; being able to talk about these things and the devastating things that people do to one another is a start in being able to talk about being better than that.

We have a problem with the high incarceration rates in our country. This has been made even worse by states that now have a private prison industry that locks people up for profit, so of course, rehabilitation is not a goal as it would lower profit. This can be a difficult topic to address, because we do struggle with crime and violence and still have a lot of work to do to come up with better solutions. This book is approachable; it allowed me to look at these issues without having to look away. The true horrors that we have in some of our prisons, particularly the private ones but others as well, are too overwhelming for me. This book was just right.

Interestingly, it is not just Shakespeare, but other literature that can change a person who is incarcerated. Those of us who love books do feel touched and changed by particularly good books at times. Why would we doubt that the same is true for someone who is incarcerated? Right now I am thinking of the documentary called "Fear of 13" that tells the story of Nicholas Yarris, who also found his opportunity to grow and change through books. One of my children is a Shakespeare scholar, and I can't wait for him to read this book! He isn't as keen on the idea and has been letting it sit. I understand; the topic makes us uncomfortable. If it is making you uncomfortable, that's ok. Be all right with that feeling, and read the book anyway. It is a story that is worth the telling, and worth hearing. Enjoy it.
9 people found this helpful
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Saved your life? I'm not convinced.

If you’re looking for evidence that Dr. Laura Bates is too cozy with the prisoners, look no further than how she refers to a prisoner’s mother: Bates calls her “Mom.” (And he sends Bates a mother’s day card.) I’d be concerned if one of my son’s high school teachers called me “Mom.” It's especially creepy in the relationship here, between prisoner and prison volunteer. And it sends up alarms in the context of this book.

It makes Bates look naive, not a good quality for a woman working with inmates in solitary confinement. From all I’ve heard, these prisoners can be masters of manipulation. If she isn’t reliable in her ability to give me a clear-eyed description of them and her experience with them, I begin to doubt everything. I doubt her motivation. Is she a little too self-promotional? Is she touting her good work and pumping up the benefits? Is she using this to get tenure? I doubt her star student, Larry Newton. Does he really talk like that? Is he using her and the program for his own selfish, unscrupulous ends? Is he, as is mentioned in the book, a sociopath hiding behind his enthusiasm for Shakespeare?

I found a video online of Laura Bates’ TED X talk which included a video of her students. What I was looking for was Newton’s “voice.” In the book he comes off canned, his language stilted and affected. And while I can hear in the video that he’s more articulate than I’d imagine from a guy with his life experience, I don’t think Bates captures his voice. Or anyone’s. She doesn’t have an ear for dialog. That’s a problem because Bates presents her work with Newton as a series of conversations interspersed with bits of description. Not only are these conversations unbelievable -- no one talks like this in real life -- but the conversations have no context. I wanted to read about her experience with the program in the prison and her reactions to the place and people and there's very little of that. Instead, the conversations are mostly a close reading of the text. Great. Do I get credit for reading this? It’s dry as toast. Now and then Bates describes her “outside” life but those are rare and minimal. And when Newton does relate the text to his own life, the writing is so bland and awkward I can’t take it seriously.

The book reads like a re-creation of a diary, and like a diary it moves from one event to another without larger perspective or connection. This happened. That happened. One short chapter talks about how she would come back from the prison and debrief with her husband over a glass -- or three -- of wine. She realizes that’s not healthy and instead takes up yoga. The end. There’s no development, no arc, nothing to compel the reader forward.

Unless you believe that men with little education serving long prison sentences for violent crimes could and would talk for hours about the motivation of Shakespeare’s characters, this book will be a tough slog. Bates never makes a case for the plausibility that these men are capable of that level of discussion, she assumes we will accept it and focus on their literary discussions. Her naivety would be endearing if it didn’t leave the reader so blind.
7 people found this helpful
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A true story worth your time!

Have already recommended this book to several friends and purchased another copy for family. I am not quite finished with it but am so glad it was one of my book club's selections. This is an amazing true story with poignant insight into the lives of prisoners who are "lifers". It has certainly changed the way I think about those who are incarcerated for crimes committed. Who ever would have thought Shakespeare would generate so much discussion amongst those in solitary confinement!
3 people found this helpful
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A raw, honest, insider’s look at prison life and prisoners. I have never read a book that touched me as much as this memoir.

I have never read a book that touched me as much as this memoir. Dr. Laura Bates is an English professor who regularly volunteers to teach English classes to inmates. Soon, she’s advanced to teaching in a maximum security prison with all types of dangerous, murderous men. As unbelievable as it sounds, she is there to teach them Shakespeare.

The study of these 400 year old works does amazing things to soften and change these hardened criminals for the better, but she focuses on one inmate – Larry. He was incarcerated for a murder committed at the age of 17, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole or of an appeal, and spent 10 years in solitary confinement for attempted murder of a guard, numerous escape attempts, and other infractions. From this man’s mouth comes some of the most soul filled and heart rending sections of the book.

Dr. Bates, Larry and the prisoners bond over Shakespeare, and readers will also find themselves bonding with all of them as we’re drawn into their experiences, words and insights. Whether or not inmates should be educated is a subject brought up in the storyline, and I can say my mind was changed after reading the incredible success story Dr. Bates shared with us and seeing how much it changed the prisoners for the better.

“Shakespeare saved my life” is a raw, honest, insider’s look at prison life and prisoners. Dr. Bates does a wonderful job getting into the prisoner’s minds and explaining how Shakespeare allowed them to analyze their past, present and future actions. She spent 10 years reaching out to, and changing hundreds of men and juvenile offenders with Shakespeare’s words. She’ll change you too.

Recommended for Adult readers and mature high schoolers.
3 people found this helpful
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Prisoners interesting...author less so

Man, would I love to read this memoir as written by Newton!

I found the prisoners' details and insights into Shakespeare's text fascinating, and that is why I finished this book.

The author was quick to highlight her own bravery, insight, and accomplishments; I found this tiresome and also out of keeping with someone who truly understands the power of education and the influence of Shakespeare to rehabilitate. The best teachers give credit to the materials and their students when a lesson has been successful. Sure, they can feel proud and uplifted that they presented the work in a meaningful way--but someone who is doing good for the right reasons does not then beat upon his chest and say "Look at the good I am doing here!"

A teacher is the scaffolding around which a student may build himself. Take pride and contentment in your work as an educator, but give credit where credit is due--to Will and HIS students.

The language was simplistic and the organization a little jumpy. Overall, the book is compelling thanks to the inmates and in spite of the author's style.
3 people found this helpful
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WOW!!!!

This is the most provocative book regarding incarceration and how we as a society can alleviate the disease that confronts the convicted criminal. Such a study of human nature was fascinating to view from the viewpoint of the incarcerated person. I highly recommend this book.
2 people found this helpful
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The SHU I worked in was much stricter than the ...

The SHU I worked in was much stricter than the one author describes in this book. Some of the things she did would never happen in California. Nevertheless, what the inmate experienced rang true and I was truly touched by the change in his life. This is why teachers teach. I do wonder whether it was specifically Shakekspeare that made the difference, or whether it was allowing the isolated soul to participate in something challenging with another human being.
2 people found this helpful
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The life-changing power of Shakespeare in an unlikely setting

As an English Literature major who in later life spent 17 years helping jail inmates find recovery from addiction, I was blown away by this true tale of how relating Shakespeare's plays to the lives of these men changed their lives. There is always hope if we look for it.
1 people found this helpful
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Extremely educational regarding our US prison system

This book reveals shocking conditions & practices within our prison systems today. It was also revelatory regarding the resilience of the human spirit. Larry Newton (convicted murderer) arrived at transformative insights through deep introspection sparked by his encounter with Shakespearian plays. Mr Newton suggests prison is a state of mind; that anyone in prison or not, may truly be locked in the prison of their own mind via their fears and unexamined assumptions and thoughts. Likewise, even in prison, one can be liberated through deep introspection. Mr Newton’s journey was sparked by Shakespeare. Many thanks to the author for her years of service to this population & for having put this book together. It touches the heart.
1 people found this helpful

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