Running the Books

Steinberg, Avi. Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian. New York: Anchor. 2010. Print.

First Sentences:

Pimps make the best librarians.

Psycho killers, the worst. Ditto con men. Gangsters, gunrunners, bank robbers -- adept at crowd control, at collaborating with a small staff, at planning with deliberation and executing with contained fury -- all posses the librarian's basic skill set.

Scalpers and loan sharks certainly have a role to play. But even they lack that something, the je ne sais quoi, the elusive it. What would a pimp call it? Yes: the love.

Description:

Avi Steinberg, author of Running the Books: The Adventures of an Accidental Prison Librarian, was on his way to nowhere. After college he was drifting, not really looking for anything, killing time writing some local news articles and obituaries for the Boston Globe. Then he came across a Craig's List ad: 

Boston, Prison Librarian, full time, union benefits.

Who could resist any full time position with benefits? As for the "prison" part of the ad, Steinberg felt that "switching from the corpse beat to prison work would be, from an existential perspective, a lateral move." Steinberg soon finds himself standing in a Boston prison as the new librarian and art of the Education Department. He is to oversee the prison collection of reading materials and give classes to inmates on writing and reading. He will be taking over for a highly-organized, "pinky-ring autocrat" librarian, completely the opposite of Steinberg and his loose ways, but Steinberg feels qualified, if a bit apprehensive. Of course, he is completely unprepared for the environment and people.

This is not a story of prison violence, riots, protests, danger, or hopelessness. It is Steinberg's memoirs of meeting and working with unique characters on both sides of the bars including:

• Coolidge, the inmate who provides legal advice from his "office" he sets up in the back of the stacks;

• Dice, an inmate librarian and former pimp, who "stayed sane during two years in the hole [solitary confinement] at Walla Walla by memorizing a smuggled anthology of Shakespeare's plays;

• Solitary, a female inmate (Steinberg worked with women from a separate section of the prison) who only stared out the window during every class, hoping for a glimpse of the son she gave up at birth and who was now incarcerated in the same prison;

• Pitts, another inmate librarian, a "sharp and flamboyant dresser ... on a quest to discover the true nature of the early Church;"

• Too Sweet, the former pimp who will be released soon and provides Steniberg with loads of insider and streetwise information.

The prison library has its own nature and power inside the prison:

In the joint, where business is slow, the library is The Spot. It's where you go to see and be seen.

The library becomes a communication center as well, with "kites" (notes) left in books for friends. Steinberg finds collecting these notes an interesting task:

I would walk around like a shell collector the a beach, gathering up legal documents, love letters, queries, manifestos, grievances, marginalia, scribbled receipts, remnants of illicit transactions, betting lines, greeting cards, prayers, incantations, and lists...

Steinberg is warned by guards about the power of books in a completely unexpected way:

Hardcover books could be fashioned into body armor. Placed in a bag and wielded as a battle flail. Taped together and used a weights. Used to hide contraband. Books could be mined for paper or illustrations ... [but] some people even used books to read.

There are fascinating tales of daily events such as "skywriting" where the male and female prison inmates signal to each other with their hands and arms in a kind of semaphore communication system, but often picking up signals not intended for them as well that lead to jealous words. Steinberg also notices the heartbreaking relationships between prisoners and their families. He sees one woman visitor waiting in line outside the prison who holds up her baby to a man to see from his cell window. It is not unusual to see children playing in dreary prison waiting areas to see a parent.

And the inmates themselves often, after years of abuse physically, emotionally, and sexually, often displayed the same emotional age as these children. Running the Books includes stories of both male and female inmates and their silly pranks, clumsy lying, acting out, thumb sucking, and even playing with dolls.

A fascinating book told through the words of an outsider-become-insider to the prison world and its inhabitants. Real people in real situations, full of humor, anger, childishness, politics, and general confusion on both sides of the bars and books.

By the way, I love the cover of this edition that shows Steinberg's face as created by date stamps commonly used in checking out library books. A neat touch.


Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard

Memoir of an English teacher who enters the solitary confinement area of a maximum security prison to teach Shakespeare to inmates, with fascinating results and acceptance. (previously reviewed here)