How Piper Met Her Alex
Wait, let’s rewind a bit and explain how Piper met her Alex, or Cleary in real life. So back in 1993, Piper Kerman was a recent Smith College graduate and at age 24, fell in love with a group she called, “clique of impossibly stylish and cool lesbians in their mid-30s.” One woman in the group she calls Nora Jansen in the book, but in real life is Catherine Cleary Wolters or Alex Vause on Orange is the New Black. Cleary was involved in a drug-trafficking ring, and before she knew it, Piper found herself smuggling drugs. Ten years later when the Feds came for her, she was living with her boyfriend Larry in New York. It took six more years for her to hear if she would go to prison or not.
How Piper Met Her Alex
Taking Liberties
Piper explained the accuracy of the series in her NBC interview, saying, ‘The Netflix series is an adaptation, and there are tremendous liberties. What that means is that when you watch the show, you will see moments of my life leap off the screen, such as Larry Bloom’s proposal to Piper Chapman, [which] is not so very different from the way my husband, Larry Smith, proposed to me. There are moments in the very first episode, like when Piper Chapman insults Red, who runs the kitchen with an iron fist — that is actually very closely derived from what’s in the book and from my own life. But there are other parts of the show which are tremendous departures and pure fiction.’
Taking Liberties