Her dad was recently transferred to the island, and Jenna, her mother and brother transferred too, to live with Jenna’s grandparents. Jenna has been trying to join The Snoops, her school’s in-group. They’re racially mixed. She’s part Native American. Though they’re really looking for an Hispanic, they are evaluating her.

Jenna isn’t permitted to tell her new friends that her dad is in prison. It’s her mother’s rule. Prison reflects on wives and children. Keeping the fact of prison secret becomes more difficult when the newspaper runs a story about a Good Samaritan rescue at the McNeil Island Corrections Center. No names are mentioned, but Jenna’s mother is furious. Jenna stays out of her mother’s way, and collects the news clippings about the incident. She writes in her journal about her wish to tell the truth. Just as Jenna is forming a friendship with one of The Snoops, another learns about her dad and prison by snooping in Jenna’s room. The group leaders vote to exclude Jenna, but the forming friendship survives, and a new one begins when the former boyfriend of a Snoops leader reveals his real dad is in prison too.

An Inmate’s Daughter is a fictional account of the reality faced by over 2 million American children with a parent in prison or jail. The children are doing time too.