I am the author of the narrative nonfiction book Among Murderers: Life After Prison. I spent more than two years at the Castle, a prominent halfway house in West Harlem, shadowing my book’s three protagonists as they painstakingly learned how to master their freedom. Having lived most of their lives behind bars, the men struggled to cross the street, choose a dish at a restaurant, and withdraw money from an ATM. My empathetic first-person narrative gives a visceral sense of the men’s inner lives and of the institutions they encounter on their odyssey to redemption. I ask what constitutes successful rehabilitation and how one faces the guilt and shame of having taken someone’s life. My work has appeared in German, American and British publications, among them Die Zeit, Art in America, The Brooklyn Rail, The Iowa Review, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, City Limits, Tablet Magazine, Epiphany and The Idler.