Harriet Clark spent 37 years visiting her mom in prison
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This is Fresh Air. I'm Terry Gross. One of the last actions of the extremist left-wing groups with roots in the 1960s was the Brinks robbery of 1981. Two militant groups, one an offshoot of the Weather Underground, the other an offshoot of the Black Panthers, robbed a Brinks armored truck carrying over a million and a half dollars. It ended in a shootout in which one security guard and two police officers were killed. Judith Clark was a getaway driver who was sentenced to 75 years to life. It meant leaving behind her 11-month-old daughter. That daughter, Harriet Clark, is my guest. She's just published a novel that draws from her own experiences being raised by her grandparents and visiting her mother in prison every weekend for most of the 37 years her mother was incarcerated.
It required traveling about an hour from New York City to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison for women. Harriet knew her mother would never get out, but she did get out after being granted clemency and released on parole in 2019. Harriet Clark's new novel is called The Hill, a reference to the prison in the novel being on top of a hill. It's her first novel. She received the Paris Review's Plimpton Prize and has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and the Wallace Stegner Program. Harriet Clark, welcome to Fresh Air, and congratulations on the book. You're an incredible writer, and I'm glad that you wrote this.
It is an absolute trip and thrill to be speaking with you, and I'm so grateful to be on the show. Thank you.
I'm honored to hear you say that. I want to start with a reading that I think will help set up your story and your mother's story.
What was the Brinks robbery and how did it affect Judith Clark's sentence?
And this is from pretty early in the book when Susanna, the child, the main character, is leaving the dentist's office with her grandfather, And her grandfather has just had one of his teeth capped. So this is as they're leaving.
My mother had robbed a bank, the first woman said. No, the second woman said. My mother had expropriated funds for the purpose of revolutionary struggle. The woman's tone suggested that she was possibly defending my mother and possibly mocking her. When my grandfather emerged dazed and swollen, it did not seem right to press for explanation. But he must have heard what the woman said, or the anesthesia must have caused his mind to wander, because on the drive home he spoke to me for the first time about my mother's crime. A misguided attempt, he called it, to steal from the rich and give to the poor. Then an elaborate explanation of the insurance mechanisms of banks, and further clarification that many people had money in banks, not just the rich.
When this lecture got into the weeds, he shifted gears into another regarding imperialism, racism, militarism, also materialism, all the things he said that he and my mother opposed, and that, he assured me, I opposed as well. His face was very close to the steering wheel. Your mother took it too far.
How old were you when you first learned why your mother was in prison? How is it explained to you?
I don't have a memory of coming into awareness of my mother's crime. It must have been explained to me, but I don't recall who explained it. My mother made clear from when I was very young that she was in prison because she had been part of something that cost three men their lives. So I think I knew from before I even knew what I knew that people had died and that my mother was in prison because of that. And she, in that sense, always raised me to understand that in some ways she was guilty and that was why she was in prison and that she would always be there.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:13
2
What was the Brinks robbery and how did it affect Judith Clark's sentence?
2:13–5:51
3
How did Harriet Clark's childhood visits to Bedford Hills shape her relationship with her mother?
5:51–19:49
4
When and how did Harriet first learn why her mother was in prison?
19:49–25:28
5
How did Harriet balance political upbringing and limited privacy during visits?
25:28–33:08
6
What did visiting the prison look and feel like to Harriet as a child?
33:08–50:18
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from Fresh Air
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