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The Book of Kin: On Absence, Love, and Being There
A remarkable debut that explores the imperfect ways we care for one another, and how we seek repair when care fails.
“What’s our obligation to each other?” asks Jennifer Eli Bowen in this propulsive exploration of community, solitude, and love. Drawing on her experiences as a mother, daughter, and founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, the country’s largest and most enduring prison-based literary organization, she examines the wild spectrum of shapes that care can take. She investigates the role of community across the world and in her own neighborhood, driven by a curiosity to uncover what might be gleaned from various vanishments in her own the shadow of her father, disappeared backyard chickens, a Moleskine notebook that passes in and out of her Little Free Library.
Tracing both connection and its lack, Bowen uncovers what happens when it’s missing, how we find it, and how it heals individuals, communities, and systems—from the incarcerated caretakers of newborn foals in Norway to the time-bending drama of watching children grow into adults. And through this winding quest to understand love, she moves readers out of their complacency not only about the state of American incarceration, but about what we owe ourselves and society.
Unflinching, vulnerable, and surprisingly funny, The Book of Kin encourages us not to abandon each other, reminding us that “harm is shared, and healing is too.”
“What’s our obligation to each other?” asks Jennifer Eli Bowen in this propulsive exploration of community, solitude, and love. Drawing on her experiences as a mother, daughter, and founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, the country’s largest and most enduring prison-based literary organization, she examines the wild spectrum of shapes that care can take. She investigates the role of community across the world and in her own neighborhood, driven by a curiosity to uncover what might be gleaned from various vanishments in her own the shadow of her father, disappeared backyard chickens, a Moleskine notebook that passes in and out of her Little Free Library.
Tracing both connection and its lack, Bowen uncovers what happens when it’s missing, how we find it, and how it heals individuals, communities, and systems—from the incarcerated caretakers of newborn foals in Norway to the time-bending drama of watching children grow into adults. And through this winding quest to understand love, she moves readers out of their complacency not only about the state of American incarceration, but about what we owe ourselves and society.
Unflinching, vulnerable, and surprisingly funny, The Book of Kin encourages us not to abandon each other, reminding us that “harm is shared, and healing is too.”
- GenresNonfictionMemoirEssays
264 pages, Paperback
Published October 21, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
April 19, 2026
The Book of Kin by Jennifer Eli Bowen asks a seemingly simple question: What’s our obligation to each other?
Using her expertise as the founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Bowen explores the range of prisons in the world, and the care incarcerated people receive there. Spanning the entire globe, years of her life, a pandemic, her children, some baby chickens, and many prison settings, she does a deep dive into the necessity of human connection and the various ways our world strips people of this most basic need.
Bowen visits a prison in Norway, filled with natural light and forest views, and she wonders “Can beauty and kind touches markedly improve a horrible situation, or just mask a tough reality? Does ‘humane’ take the edge off of ‘alone?’” (43). She visits a prison in Texas, where the incarcerated men are used as props in a dangerous, sickening rodeo show. The description is vivid and stark, bringing the reader into the horror of the Angola Prison, and she reiterates to readers that this is not some story from the past, but the reality of the present.
The Book of Kin is thoughtful, personal, honest, and experimental with its essay structures. Bowen has brought many issues with the carceral system into light, and this book instigates questions of what we might do instead. It sparks the imagination of the reader, making them wonder what the point of the current “justice system” is, and how we might imagine a world where we all care for another differently.
Using her expertise as the founder of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop, Bowen explores the range of prisons in the world, and the care incarcerated people receive there. Spanning the entire globe, years of her life, a pandemic, her children, some baby chickens, and many prison settings, she does a deep dive into the necessity of human connection and the various ways our world strips people of this most basic need.
Bowen visits a prison in Norway, filled with natural light and forest views, and she wonders “Can beauty and kind touches markedly improve a horrible situation, or just mask a tough reality? Does ‘humane’ take the edge off of ‘alone?’” (43). She visits a prison in Texas, where the incarcerated men are used as props in a dangerous, sickening rodeo show. The description is vivid and stark, bringing the reader into the horror of the Angola Prison, and she reiterates to readers that this is not some story from the past, but the reality of the present.
The Book of Kin is thoughtful, personal, honest, and experimental with its essay structures. Bowen has brought many issues with the carceral system into light, and this book instigates questions of what we might do instead. It sparks the imagination of the reader, making them wonder what the point of the current “justice system” is, and how we might imagine a world where we all care for another differently.
December 2, 2025
I read this so quickly. It was such a joy. When describing it to others, I don’t think I have at all captured it. This author has a way of weaving together seemingly unrelated information to capture life’s complicated feelings that have no singular word. It was wonderful!!
October 23, 2025
A deep and impactful collection of essays. Not only was this a powerful telling of Bowen’s life stories and experiences, I walk away with a deep push to better understand history. The history of the broken systems all around us, and those of my family. It forces me to evaluate how I’m showing up for my people and strangers alike.
November 10, 2025
Fantastic writing, deep and wonderfully human essays. Highly recommended.
June 21, 2026
This is not the kind of book I usually pick up. I gravitate towards fiction, mainly of the lighthearted variety to help me escape from the darkness of today's world. But as my oldest prepares to leave for college at the end of this summer, I find myself drawn more and more to reflective nonfiction. I'm hungry for well-crafted sentences that will help me make sense of this bittersweet transition and also help me better articulate meaning and purpose as I embark on the second half of my life.
Tall order, I know.
But this sparkling gem of a book made me stop and think and feel deeply. It opened my eyes to realities I hadn't been aware of, and it also made me feel known and seen in the realities I've experienced firsthand.
My favorite time to read this book was every morning in bed, after my alarm had gone off but before my kids had thundered into the kitchen to make their breakfast. I used the book to replace my habit of scrolling social media first thing in the morning, which is admittedly soul-sucking, but this book was refreshingly soul-nourishing. The house was quiet, and the words of each essay would wash over and seep into me, without me being interrupted every 7.2 seconds to slather jelly on a pancake or grab the next jug of syrup from a high shelf.
After reading the first paragraph of one particular essay while alone in my room, I said aloud to myself: "No effing way." I put the book down and pulled up Wikipedia, and sure enough, the author was not, in fact, pulling my leg.
Another essay about the author's Little Free Library lit a fire under me to round up picture books my children had loved long ago but hadn't picked up in years.
Several lines made me laugh, but this isn't a laugh-out-loud book.
Some essays tackle sad topics, but this isn't a sad book.
Case in point: The final essay made me cry, not because I was sad but because it left me feeling sure-footed about my place in my community and deeply hopeful for the future—mine, my children's, and the world's.
Before reading this collection, the emotional center of my brain felt like a messy desk, overflowing with papers and folders and loose binder clips. But as I read each essay, I could feel the author's words gently bringing a sense of order to the mess, sorting seemingly random ideas into piles that fit together and reorganizing everything to give me negative space. And that negative space gave me the emotional breathing room that I desperately needed.
This book is thoughtful, reflective, and above all, loving. I am incredibly grateful that I randomly happened upon it.
Tall order, I know.
But this sparkling gem of a book made me stop and think and feel deeply. It opened my eyes to realities I hadn't been aware of, and it also made me feel known and seen in the realities I've experienced firsthand.
My favorite time to read this book was every morning in bed, after my alarm had gone off but before my kids had thundered into the kitchen to make their breakfast. I used the book to replace my habit of scrolling social media first thing in the morning, which is admittedly soul-sucking, but this book was refreshingly soul-nourishing. The house was quiet, and the words of each essay would wash over and seep into me, without me being interrupted every 7.2 seconds to slather jelly on a pancake or grab the next jug of syrup from a high shelf.
After reading the first paragraph of one particular essay while alone in my room, I said aloud to myself: "No effing way." I put the book down and pulled up Wikipedia, and sure enough, the author was not, in fact, pulling my leg.
Another essay about the author's Little Free Library lit a fire under me to round up picture books my children had loved long ago but hadn't picked up in years.
Several lines made me laugh, but this isn't a laugh-out-loud book.
Some essays tackle sad topics, but this isn't a sad book.
Case in point: The final essay made me cry, not because I was sad but because it left me feeling sure-footed about my place in my community and deeply hopeful for the future—mine, my children's, and the world's.
Before reading this collection, the emotional center of my brain felt like a messy desk, overflowing with papers and folders and loose binder clips. But as I read each essay, I could feel the author's words gently bringing a sense of order to the mess, sorting seemingly random ideas into piles that fit together and reorganizing everything to give me negative space. And that negative space gave me the emotional breathing room that I desperately needed.
This book is thoughtful, reflective, and above all, loving. I am incredibly grateful that I randomly happened upon it.
February 13, 2026
One of the best books I've read in the last year. I was a bit sad when I got to the end of it.
This author exhibits an extraordinary skill in writing that is truthful, insightful, raw and tender. With the way she writes about her lived experiences and observations, she displays an uncompromising care for others, incarcerated or otherwise (e.g.: a man with behavioral health difficulties living in her neighborhood), animals included.
Given that she lives in Saint Paul (according to what she included in this book), in a neighborhood not far from my own, I hope that sometime I might actually run into her someplace local, and maybe talk with her a bit.
This author exhibits an extraordinary skill in writing that is truthful, insightful, raw and tender. With the way she writes about her lived experiences and observations, she displays an uncompromising care for others, incarcerated or otherwise (e.g.: a man with behavioral health difficulties living in her neighborhood), animals included.
Given that she lives in Saint Paul (according to what she included in this book), in a neighborhood not far from my own, I hope that sometime I might actually run into her someplace local, and maybe talk with her a bit.
March 8, 2026
Y'all should read Jennifer Eli Bowen's The Book of Kin: On Absence, Love, and Being There. This collection of interconnected essays does what I wish of all books of essays: in here, we see the microcosm of Bowen's experiences--family, teaching, parenting, relationships, death, chickens, a notebook--but each experience is part of the larger world, a commentary or question about the "bigger issues," about how things are and could be, about how we, as individuals, are part of the collective of existence and time. The book is often sweet and vulnerable; it focuses more on seeking answers than having them; it is far less lecture than conversation. Highly recommended!
February 1, 2026
I have been on an essay kick recently and this one, I think, is going to hang around in my brain for a while.
Specifically the essays on prisons and humanity and dehumanization.
The one that was both on and not on the ethics of penitence is something I want to come back to in...about 8 months or so, when Elul rolls around.
But, with Minnesota looming over everything, the way Bowen keeps asking variations on the question of "what happens when we believe people are ours" just keeps ringing in my ears.
Specifically the essays on prisons and humanity and dehumanization.
The one that was both on and not on the ethics of penitence is something I want to come back to in...about 8 months or so, when Elul rolls around.
But, with Minnesota looming over everything, the way Bowen keeps asking variations on the question of "what happens when we believe people are ours" just keeps ringing in my ears.
March 27, 2026
This book of essays from Jennifer Eli Bowen captured me right away. It's rare for essays to be unputdownable, but these are. Poetic but rooted in harsh realities, easy to read but hard to stop thinking about, deeply moving and full of heart. Our communities would be stronger and kinder if we could show up for eachother the way Bowen shows up on the page to sort through the topics of loss, abandonment, care, harm, family, and love.
March 30, 2026
This book is a perfect blend of memoir, reportage, and essay. Bowen, founding director of the Minnesota Prison Writers Workshop, writes about her tangled family relationships as well as issues surrounding incarceration. What does it mean to care for someone? To care for something? In the context of family and chosen family. This is her first book, years in the making I would assume, and wow, it is worth the wait.
Read
April 1, 2026I listened to a chunk of this book while wandering around my neighborhood feeling big sad feelings about some kids I've cared for that have died and it was beautiful and the trees were in blossom and I saw a new father looking adoringly at the seven-day-old (I asked) baby in the carrier on his chest and it was too much beauty and pain all at once and I cried. I think that is the proper way to experience this book.
February 6, 2026
This MN Book Award nominee is absolutely one of the best memoirs I’ve read in years. I laughed, cried, was horrified, and was left with more screen shots of beautiful language than I can count. I was planning on giving it to my daughter and her husband, but I’ll buy them their own copy. I’ll need to keep this! ❤️📚 Milkweed Editions
April 21, 2026
I really loved this collection of essays...thoughtful, moving, so well crafted. I finished the book with the feeling that the author could take pretty much any subject and make it interesting. I'm excited to see what comes next.
Want to Read
December 17, 2025Milkweed Book Club for January 2026
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews