Audio Story Three

 http://www.radiodiaries.org/going-home-cristels-diary/

          For my third audio story, I chose to listen to ‘Going Home: Cristel’s Diary’, from NPR’s Radio Diaries. Someone had told me about this particular story, which is what initially drew me to it, and it ended up being a very intriguing listen. The story is about Cristel (her last name is never given) and her life in Women’s Prison. When she was fifteen (and about six months pregnant), her little sister was being bullied by a classmate, and Cristel decided to do something about it. She went to the middle school that this girl attended, and confronted her. An argument ensued, and then a fight – Cristel attacked the girl with both her fists, and a razorblade that she had brought along with her. The girl was badly sliced up, and Cristel was sentenced to jail time. She has her baby in jail, and has her taken away to be with family. 3.5 years later, a judge releases her early for good behavior, and she gets to go home and get back to leading a ‘normal life’ – she talks about how wonderful it was to fall asleep with her now four-year-old daughter for the first time.

          I found this story to be very compelling. I was skeptical that I would be able to stay interested in a nearly twenty-minute story, but I was. I thought that the way the story unfolded was done extremely well – it begins with Cristel discussing her life (nothing specific), and it is slowly revealed that she is currently in jail, which you learn through audio clips of wardens and such. The use of audio outside of the actual interview was very captivating, both in jail sequences, and later on when they let you her Cristel interacting with her daughter. The tiny details of the story kept it interesting as well – for example, Cristel talks, in depth, about how she hates handcuffs, and the sounds that they make. Cristel’s telling of the story itself also made it a good interview, because she told it very straight-forward and in her tone of voice, which made it feel very real. This made it very easy to listen to, and also made some of the details all the more shocking (such as when she says, almost nonchalantly, how the girl’s nose almost came off, due to her attack). All-in-all, I found this story to be quite intriguing, as well as an excellent example of good story-telling.