Essay on "After This Life"

[scarlettina]

Shortly before the most recent issue of IGMS was released to the Web, Edmund wrote me and asked for an essay about how "After This Life" came to be written. He's just published the essay on the magazine's companion blog, Side-Show Freaks. Read it here. (It's free.) mabfan and erdnase2000 are name-checked.

Comments

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

One thing I noticed in the article was your observation that some prisoners are very smart. Although that's true, smart people in prison are outliers to a much greater degree than on the outside. (Real life example (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/24930.html).) Most people in prison range between everyday-dumb and retarded. Any consideration of experimental consent dealing with prisoners needs to be aware of that, on top of the obvious issues of how fair it is to recognize consent from a person under the control of imprisonment. In other words, one not only has to address the question, "did he sign because he agreed or because he felt compelled because he's in prison?" One also has to ask, "did he have the slightest understanding of the agreement?"

Alex in A Clockwork Orange was a very intelligent character. () But did he know what he was getting into when he agreed to the experiment? (On the other hand, did the scientists experimenting on him understand what would happen?) How much of his agreement to the experiments come from willingness to go through the treatment, as opposed to desire to do anything to get out of the prison's general population? ()

Since I haven't read your story past the teasers yet, I don't know whether this enters into it. But it's something to consider if you use prison experimentation as a story element.

[scarlettina.livejournal.com]

I know you it's your intention to contribute, but I admit to feeling as though the story is being critiqued here without actually having been read. You really ought to read the story. I did do a lot of reading, a lot of research beforehand. At this point, I'm not going to change anything about what I've written. I thought about it deeply, made deliberate choices in the service of character and story, and that's pretty much that.

And honestly, I wouldn't underestimate what you refer to as "everyday dumb." I used the word "smart," by which I meant having the intelligence to understand their surroundings and their situation, which is true of most people. And there are enough examples of prisoners educating themselves that I can't dismiss what they are capable of accomplishing.

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

I know it's not fair to comment on the story without reading it. I meant to contribute to the topic, rather than comment on the story itself. I didn't mean to suggest changes after it's published, although looking at what I wrote again I see I missed what I meant to say. (I wrote a more considered message, wiped it out with a misdirected click, and rewrote hastily and wrong. But excuses or not, what I wrote was still wrong and unfair as written. Sorry.)

Smart people in prison are exceptions, except in the low-security prisons that specialize in white-collar criminal, but enough exist that they're reasonable characters. It would only strain credibility to have an entire prison ward full of smart people.

I suppose a fair share of what I called "everyday dumb" are really cases of extremely poor education. It might take years, but eventually they'd catch up; to dismiss that would be underestimating them. But many are deeply learning-disabled; with a cursory search, I found figures ranging from 9% to almost 90%, depending on definitions.

Anyway, sorry I got carried away with one little observation to the point that I failed to think through the fact that you likely know more about the subject than I do.

I'll read the story, but I need to sleep now.