Out of Orange: A Memoir

Now Available in Trade Paperback“A powerful, surprising memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond.”—Publishers Weekly“It’s a riveting tale, told well and full of lessons for those willing to listen.”—Booklist“Can’t-put-it-down entertainment.”—Next Magazine

Cleary Wolters was going about her everyday life when she saw a commercial for a new TV show that stopped her in her tracks. The scene showed a young blond woman hopping out of a van, wearing an orange prison uniform. A blur of words and images followed, including allusions to lesbian lovers, drug smuggling, and life behind bars. Then Cleary saw a woman wearing her signature black-rimmed glasses and she dropped the remote. In that moment, Cleary knew that her private past had been brought to light in the most public way imaginable. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Orange Is the New Black went on to become an Emmy-winning cultural phenomenon streamed onto laptops and into living rooms around the world. The series, and the number one New York Times bestselling book of the same name, follows Piper, a privileged white woman who spent 13 months in prison for her involvement in an international drug-smuggling ring. Cleary binge-watched the show along with the rest of the universe, though what was fun for everyone else was a weirdly personal, strangely unnerving interpretation of events that had shaped her own life.

Now speaking out for the first time to share her story—including how she introduced Piper to the criminal activities that would ultimately send both of them to prison—Cleary tells a brutally honest, emotional tale of the bold decisions and epic mistakes she made and the struggle to keep them from defining the rest of her life.