Podcast: Piper Kerman "Orange is the New Black"

When federal agents knocked on her door with an indictment in hand, Piper Kerman barely resembled the reckless young woman she was shortly after graduating Smith College. Happily ensconced in a New York City apartment with a promising career and attentive boyfriend, Piper was forced to reckon with the consequences of her very brief, very careless affair with the world of drug trafficking. Following a plea deal for her 10-year-old crime, Piper spent a year in the infamous women's correctional facility in Danbury, which she found to be no "Club Fed." Piper takes readers into a community of colorful, eccentric, vividly drawn women. Their stories raise issues of friendship and family, mental illness, the odd cliques and codes of behavior, and the almost complete lack of guidance for life after prison.