Leann Davis Alspaugh and John J. Lennon in The Hedgehog Review:
In 2016, an essay arrived in our offices from John J. Lennon, then incarcerated at Attica Correctional Facility in New York. “The Murderer’s Mother” was a personal essay in the best sense: compelling and honest without being self-aggrandizing. John did not rationalize taking the life of a fellow drug dealer on a street in Brooklyn. Nor did he sidestep the psychological toll that his incarceration has taken on his aging mother. After his essay appeared, John and I began corresponding and soon became editorial colleagues and friends. In the summer of 2019, I traveled to Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Westchester County, New York, where I spent the day with John and his family, celebrating his graduation from Mercy College with a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science. John has gone on to become an award-winning journalist writing from prison. This year, his New York Review of Books essay “Peddling Darkness” was a National Magazine Award finalist in reviews and criticism. He is also in the final stages of preparing his book, The Tragedy of True Crime, which will be published by Celadon Books in the fall of 2025. John agreed to talk with me from Sullivan Correctional on how American prisons fail inmates, as well as some ways in which they are improving.
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