An exceptional account of a remarkable woman, Life on the Outside tells the story of Elaine Bartlett, who spent sixteen years in prison for a single sale of cocaine under New York's draconian drug laws. Released at 42, she has no money, no job and four troubled children who live in a decrepit housing project in Manhattan. 'I left one prison to come home to another,' she says. The book records her moving efforts to find her feet again, as she clashes with her daughters, hunts for a job, visits her son and husband in prison, negotiates the rules of parole, and searches for a home of her own. In Life on the Outside, award-winning journalist Jennifer Gonnerman has crafted an intimate and moving family portrait - a story of struggle and survival, guilt and forgiveness, loneliness and love.