When I was in my forties, an elderly man made an announcement at the end of a church service. “Some of us are conducting Quaker meetings at the state prison. If you’re interested, see me at coffee hour.” I didn’t consider myself especially religious, but my wife and I had started attending a Friends Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island. We found the Quaker belief in the “inner light” inspiring and believed it was another way of describing the good in all people. If everyone possessed an inner light, wouldn’t I find it in a prison?

The Honey Locust Tree, a 52,000-word memoir, takes the reader on a journey to the men’s minimum, medium, and maximum security units at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Rhode Island’s state prison. They join me as I attend Quaker meetings with inmates in chapels and reconfigured classrooms. Prisons are noisy places and sitting in silence with inmates was extraordinary. The title is inspired by the words of an inmate: “I wish I could touch a tree.”
The memoir isn’t only about prison. Other things happened during my three years at the A.C.I. that made me think hard about the inner light. A student at the school where I worked, a Quaker school, brought a bullet to class and I had to punish him. A pedophile trapped our eight-year-old daughter on the telephone and terrified her. An inmate in medium security who most embodied the inner light committed suicide upon his release. I found myself wondering again and again: How do people nurture the inner light? Can it be dimmed or even snuffed out? How strong is the inner light in me?

The Honey Locust Tree offers readers a rarely seen view of a prison, a glimpse of a middle school, and some unexpected insights about my family. The three work together in surprising ways.