What happens to a family when someone they love is incarcerated? And what happens when, after decades of waiting, they finally come home?
In this episode of the cityCURRENT Show, Andrew Bartolotta sits down with Nashville-area author Shalanda Thompson to share the remarkable true story behind her memoir, Around the River Bend: A Memoir of Love During Lockup.
What began as a childhood friendship eventually became a love story under extraordinary circumstances. Shalanda reconnected with the man who would become her husband while he was incarcerated at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, where he ultimately served 25 years.
Their relationship was built through prison visits, phone calls, letters, institutional rules, financial sacrifices, setbacks, parole hearings, and years of uncertainty. But Shalanda’s story also shines a light on something often missing from conversations about incarceration: when someone goes to prison, their family often serves a version of that sentence alongside them.
Andrew and Shalanda discuss what it takes to maintain a relationship through incarceration, the emotional toll on families, and the complicated balance between acknowledging the circumstances that led someone to prison while still believing in rehabilitation, growth, and redemption.
They also explore what happened when the waiting finally ended.
After 25 years behind bars, coming home wasn’t simply the end of one journey—it was the beginning of another. Shalanda shares what it was like for her husband to encounter a dramatically changed world, adjust to everyday freedoms most of us take for granted, rebuild relationships, and navigate the realities of reentry.
The conversation also explores the role families, employers, churches, nonprofits, and communities can play in helping formerly incarcerated individuals successfully rebuild their lives—and what it really means to offer someone a second chance.
Learn more and purchase her book: https://www.facebook.com/aroundthe.riverbend
