WINNER OF THE 2024 BMO WINTERSET AWARD • FINALIST FOR THE 2024 HILARY WESTON WRITERS' TRUST PRIZE • One of The Globe and Mail's Best Books of 2024 • One of CBC’s Best Canadian Non-Fiction Books of 2024
Riveting nonfiction from multi-award-winning author Lisa Moore, based on the shocking true story of a teenaged boy who endured abuse and solitary confinement at a reform school in Newfoundland, but survived through grit and redemptive love.
Springing from a unique, empathetic collaboration between novelist Lisa Moore and Jack Whalen, Invisible Prisons is the gripping real-life story of a Newfoundland-born man now in his sixties, who as a child was held for years at a government-run reform school for boys where he suffered abuse, deprivation, and months-long bouts of solitary confinement. Despite the odds stacked against him, after his release Jack found love and painstakingly turned his life around, becoming a devoted husband and father. And years later, when his teenaged daughter Brittany discovered what her father had endured, she vowed to become a lawyer and seek justice for him. Today, that is exactly what Brittany is doing, and Jack’s case is before the courts.
As much as Invisible Prisons is a story about cruelty and neglect endured by our most vulnerable, it is also a tender tale of love between Jack and his wife Glennis, who saw the good inside a damaged person. Written in precise, evocative prose by the magnificent novelist Lisa Moore, who makes vividly real every person, place, and moment in Jack’s journey—Invisible Prisons is an inspiring story for all those whose lives are scarred by injustice.
