This book, which is based on seven interviews conducted in a Texas women's prison, focuses on stories told by a few of the growing number of mothers incarcerated in American prisons. Incarcerated mothers' stories deal with the challenges of motherhood before, during, and after incarceration, offering a nuanced picture of social and psychological contexts that surround disadvantaged mothers with unrealistic social norms. The sum of these women's experiences-material and psychological-adds up to a counter-narrative critiquing the dominant culture's ideas of what mothers "should be" and how the...