Growing Up with a Mother in Prison

This episode of The New Yorker Radio Hour features a poignant conversation between staff writer Rachel Aviv and novelist Harriet Clark, whose debut novel *The Hill* is a fictionalized account of growing up with a mother serving a life sentence in prison. Clark recounts her childhood experiences visiting her mother at a prison facility after she was convicted for her role in a Brinks truck robbery that resulted in three deaths, though she was not a shooter. Raised by her grandmother, Clark describes the emotional complexity of her upbringing—marked by both the absence of her mother and the unique rhythms of being raised by elderly caregivers. She explains her decision to write a novel rather than a memoir, emphasizing the need to protect the privacy and dignity of others affected by her mother’s crime, while also using fiction to explore the profound emotional and psychological landscape of a child navigating a world defined by separation and silence. The novel, which took 20 years to write, becomes a vehicle for Clark’s personal reckoning—especially after her mother was granted clemency and released. In the process, Clark confronts the limits of memory, the power of imagination, and the ways in which trauma can remain unacknowledged until given narrative form. The episode ultimately reflects on the broader societal failure to see the human cost of mass incarceration, particularly on children, and challenges the normalization of prison as an ordinary institution.