[ BOOK LIVES ] Concrete Mama by Ethan Hoffman & John McCoy

Ethan Hoffman and John McCoy first met as colleagues at the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin newspaper in 1977 and spent quite a fair bit of their rookie days covering the Washington State Penitentiary.

It didn’t take long for the photographer-reporter pair to realize that their interest in the prison system was far beyond what their bosses had in mind.

Soon, the two quit their full-time jobs and spent four months in the fall and winter of 1978-79 inside the prison, hoping to share their insights on the correction system that continues to divide those who believe in it and those who don’t.

Other than not being able to spend nights (for their own safety), they were given unprecedented access to the inmates and the guards.

First published in 1981 by the University of Missouri Press, where Hoffman graduated with a master’s in photojournalism, Concrete Mama was as close as anyone could get into the cage, without having to be locked up. This pre-dated all the reality shows about prisons which I believe tend to over-dramatise.

Although it is fairly clear how they feel about the prison system, their words and images are brutally honest and yet objective, because of their journalism roots.

In a 2018 interview with University of Washington Press which released an updated edition, McCoy says, “As journalists. Ethan and I were not prison experts. We simply wanted to photograph and report on what we saw inside the walls. Here’s what prisoners tell us. Here’s what their day-to-day life is like depending on whether they’re tough or vulnerable, men or women, black, white, or brown.”

Unfortunately, Hoffman, who went on to have a very accomplished life as an editorial and commercial photographer, died in 1990 after falling from height on an assignment. He was known for his role as the president of Archive Pictures agency, and Picture Project, a company which published photography books and arranged exhibitions.

I was in my junior year in Missouri then, and had heard quite a lot about him and was hoping to meet him.

I didn’t but I’m glad I have this amazing book, which actually tells me a lot of what he believed in and his commitment to telling the stories that mattered to him.