True story of a family dealing with Missouri incarceration, Bank Notes begins at the beginning. Caroline Giammanco, author met her husband, Keith Giammanco, during her employment as a teacher with the Missouri Department of Corrections.  Their romance is a clean read while their experiences with the Missouri prison system brings a different point of view.

Strong people with strong love will survive opposition, helped by support from the important people. Immediate family and fast friends make up the tribe of important people. 

“When this all shakes out, the important people will be on the same side. Others don’t have a voice in the matter.” — Judy

Bank Notes features Keith’s story as a high profile criminal and maximum security prison inmate. The couples’ shared experience with Missouri incarceration’s environment includes

• their love for one another,
• experiences with other staff and other inmates,
• experiences as a family despite separating prison walls.
• Keith’s story can’t be told as a stand alone.

Life Derailed

As a boy, with family roots in eastern Missouri, Keith Giammanco didn’t plan to be a criminal when he grew up. He was content to be a middle-class, single dad until his income resources went south. His solution was a poor, albeit temporarily successful, choice which cost him over 20 years of his future.

His daughters, his late mother and Caroline feel the cost every day. Guilt over their struggles is an extra load that goes beyond guilt in the laws of the land.

As I read Keith’s narrative for robbery planning, I had to think that this guy did the research and strategy. His crimes were never emotional or impulsive, but were carefully planned toward calm success.  Up to a point.

The times before he decided to rob banks were not times he was fully using his strategy aptitude.  That failure was the sliding path to the financial situations that were part of his ruin.

Missouri Incarceration is A Tough Classroom Environment

As a Missouri native, Caroline is familiar with living off the land and is a strong woman, both physically and in character.  When she found a tough teaching job to fill the empty in her employment, she didn’t flinch, but did what she had to do.

Alternative School teaching experience made her difficult to surprise. Tough and/or dangerous encounters with inmates were expected.  Caroline was prepared for while teaching the GED courses at the South Central Correctional Center  in Licking, MO. 

Running up against betrayal, threats and abuse from fellow staff and authorities took the shine off the mission of teaching inmates so that they might better themselves.

Facing personal risk and the misery of nearly complete separation from Keith, she made the decision to get away from the prison system.

She is the ‘Mom’ figure for her own sons and for Keith’s daughters. A proud Grandmother, she leads her ‘tribe’ in building family foundations for their proud and fulfilled futures.

Bank Notes is Only the Beginning

Bank Notes is the February choice because it is the first telling of the future for Keith and Caroline Giammanco. A true story about real people, their future continues to build. A future when debts are well-paid and we’ll practice grace in the neighborhood. Reviewing Bank Notes earlier.

Caroline has written two more books that readers will find calling on their compassion and indignation. I put my book down with a more informed view of the Missouri Department of Corrections.

As a talented teacher and writer, she is experimenting with fiction and building plans for a short story collection.