Review: A Novel Capturing the Cruelty of Mass Incarceration

The Hill resembles author Harriet Clark's own experience.

Suzanna's fictional mother in The Hill—much like author Harriet Clark's real-life mother—is imprisoned for a botched leftist bank robbery. Suzanna's childhood is a dreamy Groundhog Day loop of visits, guards, waiting rooms, fluorescent lights, and adult evasiveness. She visits her mom every week, first with the simple commitment of a child and later with more complicated feelings.

Querulous nostalgia for communism and a mute acceptance of violent leftism structure the lives of three generations of women in the story. But if there is a political lesson of The Hill, it can be found somewhere in the foggy way it captures and condemns the cruel illogic of mass incarceration: In punishing one person, the state quietly sentences everyone around her to a life organized by her cage.