Title: Coming Home
Author: Brittney Griner with Michelle Burford
Narrator: Andia Winslow, Brittney Griner
Publisher: Knopf
Publication date: May 7, 2024
Print length: 320 pages
Audio length: 10 hours, 36 minutes
Genre: Memoir
Source: Library
Rating:
From the nine-time women’s basketball icon and two-time Olympic gold medalist—a raw, revelatory account of her unfathomable detainment in Russia and her journey home.
On February 17, 2022, Brittney Griner arrived in Moscow ready to spend the WNBA offseason playing for the Russian women’s basketball team where she had been the centerpiece of previous championship seasons. Instead, a security checkpoint became her gateway to hell when she was arrested for mistakenly carrying under one gram of medically prescribed hash oil. Brittney’s world was violently upended in a crisis she has never spoken in detail about publicly—until now.
In Coming Home, Brittney finally shares the harrowing details of her sudden arrest days before Russia invaded Ukraine; her bewilderment and isolation while navigating a foreign legal system amid her trial and sentencing; her emotional and physical anguish as the first American woman ever to endure a Russian penal colony while the #WeAreBG movement rallied for her release; the chilling prisoner swap with Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout; and her remarkable rise from hostage to global spokesperson on behalf of America’s forgotten. In haunting and vivid detail, Brittney takes listeners inside the horrors of a geopolitical nightmare spanning ten months.
And yet Coming Home is more than Brittney’s journey from captivity to freedom. In an account as gripping as it is poignant, she shares how her deep love for Cherelle, her college sweetheart and wife of six years, anchored her during their greatest storm; how her family’s support pulled her back from the brink; and how hundreds of letters from friends and neighbors lent her resolve to keep fighting. Coming Home is both a story of survival and a testament to love—the bonds that brought Brittney home to her family, and at last, to herself.
On the surface, the narrative of Coming Home should be a very familiar story for most readers. Is anyone unaware of what Brittney Griner went through in 2022? For me, despite having followed the media coverage of her ordeal as it unfolded, reading this book was eye-opening. I learned so much about her resiliency and survival, from her initial arrest and throughout her conviction, imprisonment, and eventual release.
In this memoir of her experiences as an American prisoner in Russia, WNBA and Olympics star Brittney Griner (“BG”) presents an in-depth, personal account of what she endured during her hellish ten months in captivity. It’s raw, honest, and moving. She also provides insight into her earlier life, her family and relationships, and her striking experiences as a 6’9″ gay Black woman in a society where she can’t help but stand out.
When BG made headlines after being arrested at a Russian airport, it was shocking — all the more so because she so clearly just made a mistake. As she explains in Coming Home, Brittney was returning to Russia to play with the UMMC Ekaterinburg basketball team after recovering from a bout of COVID. In her rush to catch her flight, BG packed in haste and didn’t empty her bags before repacking them, resulting in two small vials of cannabis oil traveling with her to Russia without her realizing it. And while the cannabis oil was medically prescribed for BG in the US to ease her back pain, it’s an illegal substance in Russia in any quantity.
From her arrest to detention, trial, and finally, imprisonment in a remote labor camp, BG was isolated, living in fear, and confined in harsh, unsanitary, and uncomfortable conditions. Due to her large size, most cells and transportation methods couldn’t accommodate her, forcing her into cramped, painful positions. She spent her few months in detention in a bed that was far too short for her, adding to her intense sleep deprivation.
Fortunately, she ended up housed in detention with an English-speaking prisoner who became not just a translator, but also a friend. Still, it was a hellish experience, cut off from family, friends, her country, and her language, aware from the start that she was being used as a political pawn. Despite the small amount of cannabis in her possession, she faced a potential maximum sentence of nine years — an incredibly cruel, disproportionate punishment for an unintentional mistake. One of many heartbreaking moments in Coming Home is BG’s realization that with a nine-year sentence, she was unlikely ever to see her parents again.
BG shares every moment of her experience in detail, from the arrest through her months of confinement, to the process of being released and the challenges of reintegrating into her life back home and facing the ongoing effects of her trauma. Her narrative is painful to absorb, and it’s impossible to remain unemotional while reading (or listening to) the story of her experiences.
On the flip side, the love she expresses for her family and friends is beautiful, as is the outpouring of support she received, both from those close to her and from strangers around the world. She takes none of this for granted, and repeatedly emphasizes the ongoing struggle to free other Americans still held in captivity in foreign lands.
In addition to sharing the story of her ordeal, Coming Home also shines a light on race and LGBTQ+ issues and how they affected BG both at home and abroad. In addition, her experiences show the impact of the pay disparity between men’s and women’s professional sports in its starkest terms: Because of pay caps in the WNBA, many women basketball players play abroad during the off-season, where their earning potential is exponentially higher than on their home teams. Had BG earned even near a comparable salary to her NBA counterparts, she would not have ended up where she did.
The audiobook is very well done, with BG herself narrating the introduction, epilogue, and acknowledgements, while Andia Winslow movingly narrates the rest. The tone is intimate and urgent, and I felt that I was hearing BG’s voice even when she wasn’t the actual narrator.
If you do listen to the audiobook, be sure to listen all the way through the acknowledgements. Acknowledgement sections of book are usually rather dry and factual, a place for the author to name the various people who contributed to the book. Here, though, it’s an opportunity for BG to express her deep gratitude to her wife, parents, siblings, colleagues, and supporters — it’s hard to listen to this section and remain dry-eyed.
Coming Home is a dramatic, powerful book, full of sorrow yet with an ultimately uplifting message. I already admired Brittney Griner prior to reading this book, but that’s amplified at least tenfold now that I have a deeper understanding of all that she endured and who she is as a person. I highly recommend this book.
Bookshelf Fantasies 
Wow, this sounds like an incredible experience! I remember when it happened but I didn’t hear much about it after that. I’m glad it was such a powerful read😁
Highly recommended, if you’re ever in the mood for a memoir. She’s so inspiring!