Out of Orange: A Memoir

The real-life Alex Vause from the critically acclaimed, top-rated Netflix show Orange Is the New Black tells her story in her own words for the first time—a powerful, surprising memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond.

Fans nationwide have fallen in love with Orange Is the New Black, the critically acclaimed and wildly popular Netflix show based on Piper Kerman’s sensational #1 New York Times bestseller. Now, Catherine Cleary Wolters—the inspiration for Alex Vause, Piper’s ex-girlfriend, friend, and sometimes-romantic partner on the show—tells her true story, offering details and insights that fill in the blanks, set the record straight, and answer common fan questions.

An insightful, frustrating, heartbreaking, and uplifting analysis of crime and punishment in our times, Out of Orange is an intimate look at international drug crime—a seemingly glamorous lifestyle that dazzles unsuspecting young women and eventually leads them to the seedy world of prison. Told by a woman originally thrust into the spotlight without her permission—Wolters learned about Piper’s memoir in the media—Out of Orange chronicles Wolter’s time in the drug trade, her incarceration, her friendships and acquaintances with odd cellmates, her two marriages, and her complicated relationship with Piper. But Wolters is not solely defined by her past; she also reflects on her life and the person she is today.

Filled with colorful characters, fascinating tales, painful sobering lessons, and hard-earned wisdom, Out of Orange is sure to be provocative, entertaining, and ultimately inspiring.

Cleary Wolters was going about her everyday life when she saw a commercial for a new TV show that stopped her in her tracks. The scene showed a young blond woman hopping out of a van, wearing an orange prison uniform. A blur of words and images followed, including allusions to lesbian lovers, drug smuggling, and life behind bars. Then Cleary saw a woman wearing her signature black-rimmed glasses and she dropped the remote. In that moment, Cleary knew that her private past had been brought to light in the most public way imaginable. Nothing would ever be the same again.

Orange Is the New Black went on to become an Emmy-winning cultural phenomenon streamed onto laptops and into living rooms around the world. The series, and the number one New York Times bestselling book of the same name, follows Piper, a privileged white woman who spent thirteen months in prison for her involvement in an international drug-smuggling ring. Cleary binge-watched the show along with the rest of the universe, though what was fun for everyone else was a weirdly personal, strangely unnerving interpretation of events that had shaped her own life.

Now speaking out for the first time to share her story—including how she introduced Piper to the criminal activities that would ultimately send both of them to prison—Cleary tells a brutally honest, emotional tale of the bold decisions and epic mistakes she made and the struggle to keep them from defining the rest of her life.

“A powerful, surprising memoir about crime and punishment, friendship and marriage, and a life caught in the ruinous drug trade and beyond.” - Publishers Weekly

“Don’t mistake Wolters’s sticking to the facts for lack of engrossing intrigue. Anecdotes about her globetrotting and law-breaking—not to mention her affair with Kerman—make for can’t-put-it-down entertainment.” - Next Magazine

“Wolters’s accessible and honest memoir opens the door and invites readers in. Patrons won’t meet Alex Vause, the sultry drug-trafficking queen of OITNB. Instead, they’ll meet Wolters—a woman with aspirations, whose missteps take her on unexpected journeys. - Library Journal

“Where Piper’s account has given us a voyeuristic look at prison life that allows us as a nation to congratulate ourselves on being so well adjusted and normal compared to the people whose lives we can’t stop watching, Wolters’ book sounds much more authentic, insightful, and heartbreaking.” - Tattle

“In [Wolter’s] book, she tells an honest and emotional tale of the decisions and the mistakes she made, as well as the struggle to keep them from defining the rest of her life. - Amos Lassen, Reviews by Amos Lassen

“It’s a riveting tale, told well and full of lessons for those willing to listen. Like many prisoners, she paid a big price for some relatively dumb actions, taken when she was young (she helped smuggle heroin into the U.S.). Her life and loves then, her imprisonment to follow, and her way back to the free world are all detailed here in a voice that is heartfelt and honest, toughening when it needs to but remaining steadfast.” - Eloise Kinney, Booklist

“It’s a riveting tale, told well and full of lessons for those willing to listen. ... detailed here in a voice that is heartfelt and honest, toughening when it needs to but remaining steadfast.” - Eloise Kinney, Booklist

In prose that is brilliant (at times breathtaking), Cleary also offers us a story of regret and redemption…She writes unflinchingly about her ordeals in the violent and overcrowded prison system.” - Janet Mason, Huff Post Books