Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman

Alan Huffman
  • 5.0 (6)
  • DOCUMENTARY
  • WEEKLY SERIES

In a maximum security prison in Mississippi, books are reshaping the conversation. Developed in collaboration with journalist Alan Huffman, Hidden Mirrors is a documentary-style podcast that explores the prison book club at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. For men serving time, books become more than words on a page. They become a way to be seen. And in a place built to strip people of their voices, this club helps them be heard.

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  1. EPISODE 1

    A Rare Record: Sebastian Junger, War, and a Prison That Went Silent

    The book club gathers to watch Restrepo—and the room fills with the sound of sustained gunfire echoing through a maximum-security prison. In this episode, the men discuss the documentary Restrepo, co-directed by Sebastian Junger and the late Tim Hetherington, a visceral companion to Junger's nonfiction book War, which the club read earlier. Filmed during a year embedded with a U.S. Army platoon at a remote Afghan outpost, Restrepo won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and was later nominated for an Academy Award. But A Rare Record is about more than war on screen. As the club looks ahead to a second season of the podcast, the men talk excitedly about sound design, T-shirts, and how Hidden Mirrors might give incarcerated people a public voice—only for that optimism to collide with a sudden and unexplained ban on further recording by prison officials. What follows is an account of how a fully approved podcast—endorsed by prison leadership, recorded with official permission, and even cleared for a planned CBS Sunday Morning segment—became a story the Mississippi Department of Corrections no longer wanted told. As prison administrators retreat, the podcast presses on using previously recorded sessions, transforming Hidden Mirrors into something unexpected: a rare, preserved record of voices that were meant to be heard, and then silenced. Inside the cinderblock room, the conversations continue—about books, rehabilitation, public perception, and the power of being listened to. Outside it, the ground is already shifting beneath the project. This is the beginning of Season Two—and the last season recorded inside the Wilkinson County prison.

    35 min

  2. EPISODE 2

    Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman — "Deciding What to Read"

    Ten new members join the book club at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility, and their arrival reshapes the room. As host Alan Huffman goes around the circle asking what each man likes to read — biographies, westerns, mysteries, Christian books, true crime — a portrait emerges of readers searching for something real, something that moves, something that might explain the choices that led them here. The selection process is rarely simple. In a club of 25, tastes range from vampire novels to Malcolm X, from Harry Potter to Lonesome Dove. But this session takes an unexpected turn when a new member named Dollar quietly shares that Natchez author Greg Iles — whose sprawling, history-soaked Mississippi thrillers the club has long admired — just died. The news lands hard. Dollar knew him personally, had coached football with him, had ridden in the ambulance after his accident years ago. From that moment of grief comes a rare convergence: another new member, who goes by 69, nominates Iles' The Bone Tree — a 900-page mystery novel woven through with KKK ties, organized crime, and threads that reach all the way to the Kennedy assassination. It's the second book in a trilogy they haven't started. None of that matters. The vote is nearly unanimous. This episode is about how a book gets chosen, and what that process reveals: about appetite, attention, and what these men are really looking for between the lines. Books mentioned in this episode: The Bone Tree by Greg Iles | Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel | Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward | A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah | The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas | War by Sebastian Junger | No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy | James by Percival Everett | Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury | Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut | The Autobiography of Malcolm X

    25 min

  3. EPISODE 3

    Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman — "Searching for the Bone Tree."

    The first crack at The Bone Tree starts rough. Half the club members are missing due to delayed escorts from their cells, which leads to lots of interruptions and scraping chairs as the guys finally settle in. The book itself is no light read: 900 pages smack in the middle of Greg Iles' trilogy, thick with KKK vigilantes, mob ties, JFK conspiracy threads, and the haunting "bone tree," a secret spot where victims' bones were hung like trophies, rooted in slavery and secrets. There's a lot going on in this novel, but it pulls in the club members fast.  The settings feel real to the men: nearby Natchez, Angola prison down the road, even the prison near Woodville where the club members are incarcerated makes an appearance.. "Man, we're sitting right where this could've gone down," one member observes. Due to logistical issues and the fact that this is the club's first foray into the book, the discussion is at times meandering. Some members haven't started the book, others are tearing through, but a conversational theme eventually develops, about the risks of secrets, how they rot families from the inside, shatter trust and echo through the generations. X-Man lays it out straight: "Everybody's hiding something... and you see what it does to everybody around them." Dollar, who says he coached football with Iles in Natchez 15-20 years back, calls it a barely veiled truth, "like he lived this instead of just made it up." Battle is already deep into chapter 41, dropping conspiracy teases. Chris2 lists characters like they're people he knows. Holloway lands a solid hit, tying the bone trophies to twisted Army war stories. Iles' death still haunts — he passed away on Aug. 15, 2025, at age 65 after battling multiple myeloma since '96. The club grabbed this book as a way of paying tribute. His Natchez roots make the loss hit closer. The meeting is loud and at times borders on chaotic, but the men are clearly animated by this book, and by the proximity of the Wilkinson prison. Justin, stuck in solitary, sends his notes by hand: Truth surfaces eventually. Keep digging. This episode catches the raw spark when a heavy crime thriller crashes into prison reality — secrets, race, loyalty, and the thin line between the page and the life they've lived. Books mentioned: The Bone Tree by Greg Iles (part two of a trilogy that includes Natchez Burning and Mississippi Blood) | Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel | nods to past picks.   Podcast funding from the McMullan-O'Connor Fund; book club sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Engineered by Jesse Naus, Shawn Jackson and Charlie Sensabaugh at Red Cayman Studios, in partnership with assistant producer Amanda Akari. Edited and hosted by Alan Huffman. Initial support and recordings provided by Management and Training Corporation, operator of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Special thanks to Robert Connolly Farr for use of his song "Everybody's Dying."

    41 min

  4. EPISODE 4

    Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman — "One Simple Truth."

    The Bone Tree discussion deepens this week as most members have finished the book — and the conversation follows suit, growing sharper and more focused as the men dig into what the novel is really about. The biggest club news: Daquirius is nine days from release. He hasn't even gotten his copy yet, but the room lights up for him. He plans to take his small prison library into his new life on the outside. With more of the book under their belts, the members zero in on two interlocking themes: secrets and loyalty. Wes frames it precisely — Penn Cage is juggling his identity as lawyer, mayor, and son, all while learning his father is not the man he thought he knew. "You only see what they show you," one member observes. "You can never really know a person." The group draws that thread straight into their own lives, talking candidly about how secrets operate inside prison — the paranoia they breed, the trust they corrode, and the times a whispered warning could have changed everything. Micharlos has been doing research from the inside, burning expensive phone minutes to chase down the real history behind the Silver Dollar Group, and what he finds only deepens his conviction that this book is barely fiction at all. "There's no way that book ain't true," another member agrees. "That man lived something he put on paper." The group also wrestles with family loyalty – how it compares to Penn's fierce, complicated loyalty to his father, and what it means when someone you love turns out to have done something unforgivable. Daquirius may not have his copy yet. But the men who do are ready to read the whole trilogy. -- Books mentioned: The Bone Tree by Greg Iles (Book 2 of the trilogy, which begins with Natchez Burning and concludes with Mississippi Blood) Podcast funding from the McMullan-O'Connor Fund; book club sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Engineered by Jesse Naus, Shawn Jackson and Charlie Sensabaugh at Red Cayman Studios, with assistant producer Amanda Akari. Edited and hosted by Alan Huffman. Support and recordings provided by Management and Training Corporation, operator of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Special thanks to Robert Connolly Farr for use of his song "Everybody's Dying."

    30 min

  5. EPISODE 5

    Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman — Writing Behind Bars.

    Our book discussions are on hold as we await more copies of the next selection, so today's meeting takes a turn toward writing. The club has no shortage of aspiring authors. Micharlos wants to organize a group book, each member writing a chapter about their life in prison – not about their crimes, but about transformation and hard-won lessons. He even has a working title: Trapped in a Mason Jar, an allusion to the capacity to preserve things of value, but with an everpresent risk that the results will go rank. Dollar's father is pushing him to write a memoir. X-man says he has filled journals for years and is looking for a path to publication. Jonathan is working on movie scripts and a semi-autobiographical novel. Wes, who already writes for the corrections company's in-house magazine, with a notebook always at hand – deeply regrets throwing away journals from his twenties. "That's one of the stupidest things I've ever done," he says. The conversation opens up something personal and visceral. Wes puts it plainly: people on the outside forget that the men here are sons, husbands, brothers, uncles. They've made serious mistakes, and most of them admit that unflinchingly, yet that isn't the whole story, and it's not the only story these men want to tell. There are real obstacles, though. X-man lays them out in a written message he later sends: no typewriters, no laptops, submission guidelines that don't accommodate handwritten work, shakedowns that destroy months of writing. Battle, on the other hand, wants no part of this endeavor, though he'd be happy to talk while someone else transcribes what he says for the envisioned group book. Next up: Framed, co-authored by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey, about wrongful convictions. Even from inside prison, it'll shake some assumptions loose. Books mentioned: Framed, co-authored by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey | The Tragedy of True Crime by John J. Lennon | The Bone Tree by Greg Iles. Podcast funding from the McMullan-O'Connor Fund; book club sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Engineered by Jesse Naus, Shawn Jackson and Charlie Sensabaugh at Red Cayman Studios, with assistant producer Amanda Akari. Edited and hosted by Alan Huffman. Support and recordings provided by Management and Training Corporation, operator of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Special thanks to Robert Connolly Farr for use of his song "Everybody's Dying."

    40 min

  6. EPISODE 6

    Hidden Mirrors with Alan Huffman — "Figuring Out Where You're At."

    The book club's recording ban is now in effect, and the season is drawing to a close – but the men aren't done just yet. With fewer members than usual in the room, the conversation turns to Framed, the John Grisham and Jim McCloskey expose of wrongful convictions, which has quietly rattled even these men. None of the book club members claim innocence. But the book has cracked something open.  The member known as Chris2 says he's been imprisoned for seven years, yet the stories still seemed incredible and shocking to him. Willie mentions a man currently imprisoned at Wilkinson who was convicted of rape despite an alleged DNA mismatch. Dollar notes that it can take two decades to get a wrongful conviction overturned. And Justin, writing from solitary, sends a question he hands over the room: Are the people I'm incarcerated with even supposed to be here? X-man frames it as a problem of projection – the same tendency to see only what you expect to see, which he says shapes elections, policing and how anyone in an orange jumpsuit gets perceived before a word is spoken. Such prejudgments happen even in prison, he says. Dollar calls this last book club session one of the most important discussions the club has had – which makes it all the more painful that it could not be recorded – of necessity, a large part of this episode relies upon notes recounted in voiceovers. In a one-on-one recorded interview, Micharlos, meanwhile, reflects on what this whole undertaking has meant to him. He wants to be remembered as someone who helped build something here, something that gave the men an outlet and helped them get through incarceration. He expects others to feel the same. The season ends not with a tidy resolution, but with lots of questions – that, and the image of a hand holding a book over a razor wire fence – an idea for a prison tattoo that Hopper came up with for the whole group. Books mentioned: Framed, co-authored by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey Podcast funding from the McMullan-O'Connor Fund; book club sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council. Engineered by Jesse Naus, Shawn Jackson and Charlie Sensabaugh at Red Cayman Studios, with assistant producer Amanda Akari. Edited and hosted by Alan Huffman. Initial support and recordings provided by Management and Training Corporation, operator of the Wilkinson County Correctional Facility for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. Special thanks to Robert Connolly Farr for use of his song "Everybody's Dying."

    46 min
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In a maximum security prison in Mississippi, books are reshaping the conversation. Developed in collaboration with journalist Alan Huffman, Hidden Mirrors is a documentary-style podcast that explores the prison book club at Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. For men serving time, books become more than words on a page. They become a way to be seen. And in a place built to strip people of their voices, this club helps them be heard.

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