The women's house of detention A queer history of a forgotten prison

The Women's House of Detention (the House of D) stood at the center of New York's Greenwich Village for four decades (1932--71) through generations of prisoners, many of them queer, gender nonconforming, and transmasculine. Its history, in many ways, is also the Village's history. Historian Hugh Ryan (When Brooklyn Was Queer, 2019) explores how the prison, the neighborhood, and larger society reflected each other through the personal stories of some of the thousands upon thousands of women who passed through this forgotten institution. He profiles such famous inmates as Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur, and Andrea Dworkin but mostly focuses on the unknown, such as Big Cliff and Elaine B. Their stories are told through the intersections of sexuality, poverty, race, and criminality. Through his primarily pioneering research, Ryan provides valuable context for them in and out of the House of D. Throughout, he bears witness to the indignities and persistent inhumane failures in the prison, from overcrowding and feces-laden food to barbaric physical exams. Ryan has created a valuable new lens for queer and carceral history.

Historian Ryan (When Brooklyn Was Queer) delivers an immersive study of a New York City women's prison that operated between 1929 and 1971. Contending that the House of D, as it was known, "helped make Greenwich Village queer, and the Village, in return, helped define queerness for America," Ryan recovers the story of Charlotte B. (most last names are withheld), who fell in love with a fellow inmate while awaiting her arraignment for "waywardism" in 1934, and other queer and "transmasculine" prisoners. Though the inmates' harsh treatment, including "dehumanizing" medical exams, provoked riots beginning in the 1950s, queer women remained segregated and were still required to wear a "D" (for degenerate) on their clothes. Contending that these experiences pushed queer women to resist labels and take pride in their sexuality, Ryan notes that by the 1960s, the House of D was publicly linked to queer behavior in Broadway musical lyrics and magazine articles, and explains how Black Panther member Afeni Shakur, incarcerated in 1969, connected Black Power with gay liberation. Expertly mining prison records and other source materials, Ryan brings these marginalized women to vivid life. This informative, empathetic narrative is a vital contribution to LGBTQ history. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic. (May)

Award-winning author Ryan (When Brooklyn Was Queer) brings forward the history of women's prisons in this country, highlighting how they disproportionately affect lesbians, transgender men, and gender-nonconforming people. Specifically, Ryan chronicles the history of the Women's House of Detention in New York City's Greenwich Village. The jail helped shape the queer culture of the Village and vice versa. Through Janet Metzger, we hear the voices of some memorable detainees, such as Angela Davis and Afeni Shakur, along with many forgotten ones. Metzger's matter-of-fact delivery relays the sense of "what you see is what you get" that the women and men who found themselves there came to accept. Ryan states in his introduction that the Women's House of Detention and all prisons throughout our history "are a monstrously efficient system doing exactly what it was designed to do, hide every social problem we refuse to deal with." Opened in 1929, the detention house hid poor women, women of color, nongender-conforming people, lesbians, queer women, and women who protested injustices of every kind. VERDICT Ryan's historical research and clear writing and Metzger's matter-of-fact presentation are a must-listen.--Laura Trombley

The neglected story of the "Skyscraper Alcatraz," a notorious women's prison where inmates included Angela Davis and Ethel Rosenberg. As Ryan, the author of When Brooklyn Was Queer, demonstrates, for much of the 20th century, Greenwich Village was "the epicenter of women's incarceration in New York, and the epicenter of queer life in America." The author examines how the two realities intersected and rippled outward in an impressively researched study of the Women's House of Detention. Ryan's narrative is part history, part horror story, and part blistering critique of the country's "criminal legal system" (a term he sees as more accurate than "criminal justice system"). Dubbed the House of D, the prison operated from 1929 until the early 1970s and was demolished after riots by inmates helped to expose its dangerously overcrowded and inhumane conditions. Although intended for short-term female prisoners awaiting trial or sentencing, the 11-story, vermin-infested building held "women and transmasculine people" for months or even years, crammed into small cells with no recreational, educational, or vocational programs and woeful medical care: "The dentist had so little time per prisoner that all he did, regardless of the complaint, was pull teeth," writes Ryan. "There was no gynecologist, or any doctor at all on premises most nights and weekends." The staff subjected new arrivals to forced enemas and other invasive procedures, overdrugged inmates with Thorazine, and for a time forced gender-nonconforming prisoners to wear a D for degenerate on their uniforms. In reconstructing this chilling history, Ryan had rare access to private social work files that enabled him to tell detailed personal stories of prisoners, who could be sent to the House of D for crimes such as "waywardism," "wearing pants," and "lesbianism itself." While his narrative has strong LGBTQ+ interest, it also belongs on the shelf with books about judicial-system failures, such as Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. A well-reconstructed history of one of America's worst prisons for women. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.