A provocative drawing of Venezuela's Lady Justice replaced Abe Lincoln's words on the lawyer's room of Reten La Planta, a prison in Caracas. The time was 1995, Gail Kenna's last day in country after four years there. Her non-fiction work, initially printed through a 2000 Puffin Foundation grant, explores a country that satirizes greed and depravity, and mocks unequal administration of the law. In prologue and epilogue, and fourteen interrelated stories, Kenna unveils corruption that helps to explain Venezuela's tragic economic and political morass today. In the foreword to this reissued book, Kenna asks how Lady Justice should be depicted in the USA today, and if Venezuelan corruption has something to teach us.

Gail Wilson Kenna earned B.A. USC 1965. Graduate work San Francisco State. Earned secondary teaching credential 1967, married 1968, taught in Los Angeles, San Antonio, and decade in Napa Valley. High school English teacher. Began writing 1970 after U/C Berkeley Bay Area Writing Project. First publication Redbook, 1981. Wrote for magazines & newspapers in 1980s, military audience, received awards. In Germany, completed MFA degree, then taught writing & literature for college & university programs in foreign countries & USA. Still teaching at 80. First book published 1982.Three editions, New Reader's Press, until 2003. In 2019, Along the Gold Rush Trail reprinted as Here to There and Back Again (Ingram). Five of Kenna's books currently available. Received U.S. State Department award for work in Venezuelan prisons. Beyond the Wall 2000 reprinted in 2020 (Ingram). A passionate teacher, tireless fighter for justice, lover of family, friends, students, literature & nature, Lives with 1968 husband on creek of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay. Two adult daughters live in Washington, D.C. Tennis competitor since 1953 & tennis instructor since 1960s. At 80 with new knees, plays tennis five times a week. Tennis Talk of a Nobody is her seventh book.