Fredi Washington
The FMC, Rose Washington, has a deep personal and physical identification with Fredi Washington: a real Black actor from the Harlem Renaissance who could easily pass for white. Fredi refused to allow Hollywood to identify her as white, and she used her fame to support Civil Rights causes, helped found the Negro Actor’s Guild of America, and uplifted the Black community. Fredi serves as the inspiration for Rose’s physical appearance, struggle for racial acceptance, and adult motivations to not leave Black people behind.
If you are wondering what Rose looks like, she looks like Fredi.
(Photo credit: IMDB)
The Defenders of the Cornerstone
The fictional white supremacist organization in this novel takes its name from the real Cornerstone Speech: the most famous speech in Confederate history, delivered in 1861 by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens who declared white supremacy to be the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy.
Claude’s 9-1-1 call
The dispatch call in the opening pages was modeled on the publicly released transcript from the George Zimmerman 9-1-1 call, which documented how a young Black person walking alone at night became the predicate for a deadly confrontation.
Transcript of the call: https://archive.org/details/326700-full-transcript-zimmerman
Prisoners Driving One Another to Work Release
Prisoners driving one another to work details sounds preposterous but, in a prison system heavily reliant on inmate labor, it is reality in Alabama work release programs.
NPR: In Alabama, Work Release for Incarcerated People More Common Than You Might Think
Prison Official Facilitating Trafficking
The plot device of Rose exploiting a guard-managed prison drug trafficking system to escape was inspired by documented allegations that state prison officials are engaged in trafficking of drugs and other contraband (including harvesting the organs of deceased inmates).
• EJI: Supervisor Arrested for Drug Trafficking After Overdoses at Alabama Prison
Deadly Overheating in Prison Cells
The conditions for the overheated solitary cells that kill Alyssa are in documented prison deaths from heat exposure: a crisis that has killed countless real incarcerated across the American South.
EJI: Alabama Man Dies in Overheated Prison Cell
EJI: Horrific Conditions in Solitary Confinement in Alabama Prisons
The Nation: Scorching Temperatures Are Turning Prison Cells into Furnaces
Prison Slave Labor for American Corporations
The Phillips Penitentiary prisoners producing goods for the Hughes Company is not fiction. Investigations documented more than 500 real American businesses, including nationally recognized chains, using American prisoners as cheap, unregulated, and unpaid labor. The 13th Amendment’s exception clause makes it legal.
• Business & Human Rights Resource Centre: 500+ Businesses Using Alabama Prisoners as Cheap Labor
• NPR: Prisoners Are Suing Alabama Over Forced Labor, Calling It a Form of Slavery
• In These Times: Alabama Slavery — Prison Labor and Capitalism
• U.S. News: Alabama Profits Off Prisoners
• PBS NewsHour: Inmates at Louisiana’s Angola Prison Sue to End Working Farm Lines in Brutal Heat
• The Marshall Project: Prison Plantations
• JSTOR Daily: Slavery and the Modern-Day Prison Plantation
• AP: Prison to Plate — Inmate Labor Investigation
Prison Food
The rotting, inedible food at Phillips (such as nutraloaf) is real and a common occurrence in state prison based multiple investigations of American prisons.
Vice: What It’s Like to Eat Some of the Worst Prison Food in America
Prison Legal News: Appalling Prison and Jail Food Leaves Prisoners Hungry for Justice
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/31/eating-behind-bars-book-prison-food
https://www.aclu.org/news/prisoners-rights/the-reality-of-mealtime-in-prisons-and-jails
https://www.aclusocal.org/publications/cold-rotting-moldy-meals/
“Fuck or Fight”
Rose being sold and trafficked by prison gangs is a real and near-ubiquitous byproduct of gang violence in real prison by dozens of accounts of “prison bitches.” This is highlighted by the case of Texas prisoner Roderick Keith Johnson, who was turned into a prison sex slave by gangs for debt. Johnson coined the phrase “fuck or fight,” used throughout the novel by Rose, to describe the impossible choice he was given. His case was the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit.
New York Times: Inmate Was Considered Property of Gang
ACLU Texas: Prison Sex Slave Trial
https://www.queerty.com/former-inmate-recounts-horrors-turned-gay-sex-slave-prison-20180406/
https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/a2503/esq0804-aug-sexslave/
Runaway Sexual Abuse at Women’s Prisons
The only thing that competes with the rampant violence in Alabama prisons is the shocking levels of sexual abuse. I modeled the abuse Rose endures at Phillips closely after a Department of Justice investigation into the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Alabama, which has a reputation as one of the worst women’s prisons in America.
Many beta and ARC readers could not believe an American prison would allow sex to become a currency for necessities, but that is precisely what is happening in Tutwiler and many women’s prisons today.
DOJ Report: Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women (January 2014)
Human Rights Watch: All Too Familiar — Sexual Abuse of Women in U.S. State Prisons
LA Times: Widespread Sexual Abuse at California Women’s Prisons
The Guardian: California Prison Sergeant Sexual Abuse
https://www.aclu.org/documents/words-prison-sexual-abuse-prison
https://www.gao.gov/blog/heinous-crimes-haunting-federal-prisons-rape-and-sexual-abuse
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2026/03/27/prison-sexual-misconduct-bryan-bop
https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118184/documents/HHRG-119-JU08-20250506-SD017-U17.pdf
Alabama’s Ultra-violent Prison System
The pervasive violence Rose encounters at Phillips reflects the extensive reporting on Alabama’s correctional system as one of the single-most dangerous places on planet Earth, as documented in multiple federal investigations, legal filings, and journalism.
Alabama Smart Justice: Alabama Prisons Among Deadliest Places on Earth
EJI: Homicide Rate in Alabama Prisons Five Times Higher Than State
The Guardian: Documentary — The Alabama Solution (2025)
Alabama Appleseed Prison Report
AL.com: Who Killed Daniel Williams? A Tale of Terror in Alabama Prisons
EJI: Officer Describes Corruption and Violence in Alabama Prisons
A Compromised Public Defender and Judiciary
Theodore Perkins is a public defender working with private companies to sell out clients to a wealthy benefactor in exchange for bribes, and ultimately judicial advancement. While he is a fictional character, his arc reflects real concerns about corruption inside the American judiciary, including financial relationships between judges and the wealthy individuals whose interests their decisions affect
The Guardian: Clarence Thomas, Travel, and Harlan Crow
ACLU: A Pound of Flesh — The Criminalization of Private Debt
https://www.npr.org/2022/08/18/1118108084/michael-conahan-mark-ciavarella-kids-for-cash
The Jasper Hughes Show
Some of the dialogue on the radio show with Jasper and Caleb Hughes, and Governor Urban was adapted from several episodes of the Rush Limbaugh Show.
White Supremacist’s Infiltration of Law Enforcement
The fictional connection between the Defenders of the Cornerstone and the Dothan Police is not an anomaly. It reflects decades of warnings from public interest organization and journalists about the deep infiltration of white supremacist organizations inside American law enforcement. The FBI (prior to the Trump Administration) has, for years, repeatedly flagged it as a national security threat. (Credit to CNN for the photo)
The Guardian: White Supremacists and Militias Infiltrate US Police
Reuters: Prevalence of White Supremacists in Law Enforcement Demands Drastic Change
Brennan Center: White Supremacist Links to Law Enforcement Are Urgent Concern
Fox13: FBI Memo on White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement