In his new novel, END OF STORY, Peter Abrahams opens with his main character, a struggling writer named Ivy Seidel. Here, "struggling" means that she's living in Brooklyn and working in Manhattan as a bartender. I suppose it's possible for a struggling writer to be based out of Red Bank, New Jersey or Laredo, Texas, but they always seem to end up in New York tending bar. This may not sound like a good long-term strategy, but it turns out that being a bartender in New York can mean that an editor from the New Yorker will walk into your establishment, order a Budweiser, and offer to read your next short story submission.

It turns out that Ivy, our plucky heroine, has a second job teaching inmates at the Dannemora Prison in upstate New York. Her best friend sells a screenplay to a Hollywood studio, and Ivy inherits the job. It turns out that the inmates --- including a looming Hispanic weightlifter, a serene African-American lifer, and a timid white Ivy League accountant --- have some hidden talents in the writing field. Furthermore, one inmate (who has real talent) may very well be innocent. . . .