In the Spider's Web

In the Spider’s Web centers around Caitlin Weber, 13, a girl who, in collusion with her mother and four other children, murders her mother’s employer. Arrested, Caitlin is sentenced to 22 years in prison. She is sent to Ash Meadow, a prison for juveniles, where she will stay until she turns 18, when she will be transferred to a prison for adult women. This nonfiction novel focuses on Caitlin’s experience in Ash Meadow and on her relationship with Jerry, her rehabilitation counselor.

In prison, Caitlin is assailed by guilt over what she did. She resents Jerry for bringing up the past when she wants to forget it. But as their relationship progresses, they develop respect and even love for each other, she for him because he doesn’t judge her; he for her because something in her insists that she keep trying to better herself, even in confinement.

This book is the second of three to be published dealing with the author’s experience as a rehabilitation counselor in a juvenile prison. The first book was Paranoia & Heartbreak: Fifteen Years in a Juvenile Facility (see author bio).

Jerome Gold of Seattle, WA

Jerome Gold is the author of fifteen books, including The Moral Life of Soldiers and the memoir, Paranoia & Heartbreak: Fifteen Years in a Juvenile Facility. Russell Banks said about this book: “I’ve finished reading Jerome Gold’s terrific book cover to cover without a break… It’s a powerful and very tenderhearted book without a soupçon of sentimentality. Unforgettable!” Mr. Gold’s novels include Sergeant Dickinson, about which the New York Times Book Review said: “[It] belongs on the high, narrow shelf of first-rate fiction about battlefield experience.” He has published stories, essays, reviews and poems in Chiron Review, Moon City Review, Fiction Review, Boston Review, Hawaii Review, and other journals.