Half Broke

Gaffney, Ginger. Half Broke. New York: Norton. 2020. Print

First Sentences:

At first it seemed like just another ranch asking me to help. Training horses and educating their owners has been my job for the last twenty years ...

This particular ranch is a prison. Most of the residents living here are multiple offenders, felons.

Description:

Sometimes you come across a book that is so honest and open in its writing style that the people and actions portrayed just seem more real and compelling than usual. Ginger Gafney is a writer with this kind of voice. She is a real-life horse trainer who shares her thoughts and fears with us in a simple, quiet voice. 

Her memoir, Half Broke, is a wonderfully full of raw, down-to-the-bone descriptions and observations of her voluteer work with prisoners serving time on a ranch-style facility in New Mexico. These felons are mostly drug abusers and dealers, men and women who have served countless years in correctional facilities, foster care, and abusive relationships. 

Gafney works with a small group of these damaged individuals to teach them how to train difficult horses to accept human contact and be gentled into ridability for their owners. The horses themselves have been donated or loaned to the ranch because the animals have also suffered some trauma in their lives and have become wildly afraid of or aggressive towards humans. Two of these horses ran free within the facility's walls because after being hastily dropped off, they never could be caught, much less harnessed. For two years they charged, bit, and kicked any prisoner who came near them, despite the painful and gaping wound one of them had received during the off-loading from their trailer. 

Gafney slowly introduces her group of prisoners to the necessity of understanding horses and their needs. She explains how the horses are ultra sensitive to presence and posture, so first teaches the men and women how to walk with non-threatening confidence, to quietly approach the animal when it allows them, and to touch and groom it gently. Eventually, the prison group softens themselves, become less aggressive, and stand straighter and more calmly when they deal with other prisoners on the ranch.

Gafney herself reveals her own troubled childhood. She refused to speak until she was six years old, preferring the quiet of hidden places where she could be alone in silence. A gift horse changed her life as she cared for it, learning how it was aware of her every action and word, and both girl and horse responded accordingly. Gafney learned everything she could about training horses and chose that for her profession.

It's not exactly a feel good story as there are plenty of setbacks with horses and people alike. But the overall picture shown by Gafney is an honest portrayal of her real-life situation full of damaged people and animals, as well as the triumphs each experiences. Her writing pulls you deeply into this environment as it teaches you about people and horses learning to exist among the challenges of their own trauma. As Gafney says about herself (and maybe speaks for others at the ranch):

I  know I belong. All our troubles, all our inadequacies, we wear them on the outside. There are no perfect, pretty people at the ranch. We are the ugly, the difficult, the invisible, the broken. Nothing is hidden. It is why horses have always been easy for me. They're honest. They show me exactly how they feel.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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

 de Clermont-Tonnerre, Laura. The Mustang.   

Here's a first for me: recommending a movie rather than a book. The Mustang is a fictionalized portrayal of the real-life prison program where wild mustangs are rounded up to be tamed and trained by prisoners. Portrays a similar environment, people, and challenges presented in Half Broke.

Confessions of an Innocent Man

Dow, David R. Confessions of an Innocent Man. New York: Dutton 2019. Print

First Sentences:

If you ask a lucky person to tell you what happened on the worst day of his life, he can do so without hesitation.

If you ask the same question to a homeless mother of three whose earthly possessions fit into a stolen grocery cart, she won't have a clue. I know this is true because I am one of the lucky ones, but my father was not. 

Description:

Here's a pretty straight-up story for a novel. A man is falsely accused, tried, convicted and sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit. There was circumstantial evidence and a possible motive, but we readers know that the narrator of David R. Dow's Confessions of an Innocent Man is clearly innocent.

The novel opens with Rafael Zhettah, owner of a small restaurant, describing the loving relationship he had with his wife, Tieresse, right up until she was found murdered in their lavish home. "Lavish" because Tieresse was a multi-billionaire. Unfortunately, at the time of Tieresse's killing, Rafael was in bed with another woman. Although he admits to this infidelity (and others), they could all be explained and were considered acceptable by his wife. But given Rafael's lack of a solid alibi in the time frame for the murder, along with the not insignificant motive of him inheriting her billions, Rafael becomes the number one suspect.

He is tried and sentenced to be executed, and his life begins anew on death row. As narrator, he carefully reconstructs his conversations and interactions with fellow prisoners, all of them along with Rafael, waiting for lawyers to hopefully win their cases on appeal. 

Men do not go crazy from being locked in a cage. They do not go crazy from the outside pushing in. They crack from the inside pushing out. When you take away hope, madness fills its place, and madness is loud...louder than anything in the free world....Making noise is the proof you aren't yet dead.

The years, months, days and finally hours pass as one appeal after another is denied. Finally, Raphael is lead down the corridor to the noose.

I prayed for time to slow down, desperate for someone to take however long was needed to realize I did not kill my wife....for me, time is the enemy.

But that is only the very beginning of the book and for Rafael. What occurs next is utterly surprising. I won't spoil the next steps other than to say the second half of the book details one gripping instance after another. Suffice to say, you simply cannot anticipate what is going to happen from page to page, right up to the ending. Human nature, both positive and negative, are simply unpredictable.

Dow creates a tension throughout the novel that is incalculable, not for shock, gore or violence, but for the difficult situations he places his characters in and the choices he gives them to face along with the outcomes they cannot expect. 

Readers simply will be unable to put this book down, both for the high quality of story and character, but also for Dow's skillful writing in telling this story through Raphael's thoughts and words. I was fascinated by it and gave up trying to guess what would happen next after only a few pages. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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

Jones, Tayaril. An America Marriage.   

Earl;y in a new marriage, the husband is falsely accused, tried, sentenced, and incarcerated. How he and his family respond to this injustice as well as its affect on their relationship is remarkably, honestly, compassionately portrayed. Highly recommended (previously reviewed here)

Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life  

True memoirs of a man caught for theft and his resulting time spent in prison during the turn of the 20th century. While covering an older time, the description of actual prison life and prisoners is fascinating and chillingly honest. (previously reviewed here) 

Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison  

True memoirs of a man caught for theft and his resulting time spent in prison during the turn of the 20th century. While covering an older time, the description of actual prison life and prisoners is fascinating and chillingly honest. (previously reviewed here) 

An American Marriage

Jones, Tayari. An American Marriage. Chapel Hill: Algonquin 2018. Print.

First Sentences:

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who leave home, and those who don't.

I'm a proud member of the first category.

Description:

Wow, wow, and yet again WOW!

It's been way too long since I've read a book that made me want to drop everything to sit and read for hours on end. Great writing, interesting story, and above all realistic, complex characters are the rewards of Tayari Jones' fourth novel, the brilliant An American Marriage. And boy, what a ride.

The story revolves around Celestial and Roy, two African-American young marrieds, one wealthy and one poor but on the rise financially. They are living in Atlanta reveling in their loving if challenging new relationship. Their future looks bright, with talk of careers and children.

It was a wonderful feeling to be grown and yet young. To be married but not settled. To be tied down yet free.

But their world is abruptly shattered when Roy is wrongly convicted of a crime and sent to prison for twelve years. .After several years, both Roy and Celestial begin to change and accept their new lives apart from each other.

When something happens that eclipses the imaginable, it changes a person. It's like the difference between a raw egg and a scrambled egg. It's the same thing, but it's not the same way at all....I look in the mirror and I know it's me, but I can't quite recognize myself.

But when Roy is exonerated and released early from incarceration, he hopes to resume their married lives together. But both he and Celestial are faced with the realities of personal worlds that have changed. Their current lives are not necessarily better or worse, but definitely changed. They cannot go back to what was reality five years ago, but are uncertain about what the future might bring. 

There are other important characters from parents to childhood friends who set examples of both good and poor relationships. They freely give opinions to Roy and Celestial on what constitutes appropriate actions for a couple or a "real man." We readers shift sympathies as we understand more about the lives of these people and the influences they have on Roy and Celestial.

Okay, that's it. Can't give away any more. It's a complex, heartbreaking, lovely, honest, and unpredictable story. It is strongly told in chapters narrated by different characters, giving their own unique perspectives to the events. Readers get inside the heads of Roy, Celestial, and others so intimately that we cannot help but share their struggles and the consequences of their decisions.

And then there is Jones' writing: always clear, strong, and tersely descriptive. Each character is intimately portrayed and given a unique voice to narrate their individual chapters, reveal their dreams, and express their fears and disappointments. These characters are definitely memorable

[Celestial] is a scotch-and-Marlboros alto. Even when she was a little girl, her voice was like the middle of the night. When she gives a song, it isn't entertaining; rather, it sounds like she is telling secrets that are not hers to reveal.

I give An American Marriage highest marks. An excellent read in every way.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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

Nan, Stewart. The Odds: A Love Story  

A middle age couple, at a crossroad in their marriage, want to decide whether to stay together or separate. They decide to have their fate decided by a game of dice, cashing in all their financial assets to bet on one game, with the outcome to determine their fate to remain together or move apart. Brilliantly narrated separately by both persons, letting readers change sympathies for the characters as new secrets are revealed en route to Canada and the gaming table. (previously reviewed here)

Simon, Rachel. The Story of Beautiful Girl  

A mentally-challenged white woman and deaf African-American man escape from the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded with their newborn infant  and hide in a farmhouse, helped by its owner, Martha. When they are caught by authorities, Homan escapes but Lynnie whispers to Martha, "Hide her." What transpires is the journey of Homan and Lynnie to try to be be reunited with each other and their child. (previously reviewed here) 

Life or Death

Robotham, Michael. Life or Death. New York: Mulholland Books. 2014. Print.

First Sentences:

Audie Palmer had never learned how to swim.

As a boy when he went fishing with his father on Lake Conroe he was told that being a strong swimmer was dangerous because it gave a person a false sense of security. Most folks drowned because they struck out for short thinking they could save themselves, while those who survived were found clinging to the wreckage.

Description:

The opening pages of Michael Robotham's Life or Death follow Audie Palmer as he escapes from his prison cell where he has been serving 10 years for a robbery where four people died. When we first meet him, outside the prison walls and on the run, he faces a three-mile lake between him and relative safety, a daunting obstacle for someone who cannot swim.

The strange thing is the timing. His escape occurs the night before he is scheduled to be released from prison, his sentence completed. Why would anyone risk escape/recapture and the possibility of serving an additional 20 years in jail only hours before becoming a free man? The reason behind this last-minute escape is the mystery that drives Palmer and the gripping narrative of Life or Death  

We soon learn there was $7 million from that armored truck robbery that was never found. Is Palmer going somewhere to reclaim the money? Certainly there are many people who believe so and their efforts to locate him and the money (and then separate him from said money) are thorough and chilling. But he manages to elude each one of them to continue on his unknown quest.

This is high quality thriller writing at its very best. We root for Palmer to escape his pursuers and obtain his goal, but really can we sympathize with someone involved in a robbery where people died? And does he deserve to recover and claim any money that was stolen? What role did he play in the theft/killing? Maybe things are not exactly what they seem to be, and that is the delicious irony behind his drive and the rational motivating his many pursuers.

To say more would be to reveal too much. Suffice to say, it is a fantastic page-turner with good and bad characters plotting, running, pursuing, and eluding. Palmer continually reflects on his past and what lead him to his current position on the run, but author Robotham takes his sweet time in revealing details that would explain both the reason for his last-minute escape and his future plans (besides avoiding re-capture and possible death by his pursuers). Mostly, we admire Palmer because he is a survivor, a man of mystery, and seemingly a good person.

My father didn't believe in God but he said there were six angels -- Misery, Despair, Disappointment, Hopelessness, Cruelty, and Death. 'You'll meet every one of them eventually,' he told me, 'but hopefully not in pairs.' Audie Palmer met his angels in pairs. He met them in threes. He met them every day...[but] he endured.

Highly recommended for plot, character, and writing style. Pick it up and you won't be disappointed on any level.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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

Hayes, Terry. I Am Pilgrim

A member of a high level intelligence (very secret, of course) has to identify, find, and stop a terrorist who plans to bring down the entire United State of America. The best thriller I have ever read.. (previously reviewed here)

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

____________________

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)

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Puig, Manuel. Kiss of the Spider Woman. New York: Vintage. 1978. Print.

First Sentences:

- Something a little strange, that's what you notice, that she's not a woman like all the others. She looks fairly young, twenty-five, maybe a little more, petite face, a little catlike, small turned-up nose. The shape of her face, it's ... more roundish than oval, broad forehead, pronounced cheeks too but then they come down to a point, like with cats.

- What about her eyes?

Description:

Manuel Puig's  Kiss of the Spider Woman is like nothing I have read before. Riveting, mysterious, horrifying, secretive, fearful, and hopeless, the novel forces you to try to understand who these characters are who are talking, where they are, and what is going to happen to them on the next page.

Written entirely as a dialogue mostly between two men, Kiss of the Spider Woman unfolds its secrets very slowly. A word here and a phrase there in their conversations is all we have to go on. 

The speakers are slowly revealed to be two cellmates languishing in an foul Argentine jail, passing their prison sentences by talking with each other. Molina, a middle age gay man serving time for abusing a child, relates long plots of his favorite movies to his cellmate Valentin, a youthful revolutionary. In their dark cell, these plots grippingly told help pass the time and take their minds away from their situation. But even these stories can only temporarily stave off their depression over their lot in life.

As the men grow closer, they begin to discuss their lives, thoughts about politics, and plans for the future. Valentin initially disdains Molina for his feminine side, but eventually grows to respect him for his generosity in sharing food. This compassion along with Molina's tender care help Valentin survive a devastating illness. 

Much is left unsaid by these men who live in separate worlds of unrest, fear, suspicion, and revolution. Valentin is secretive about his previous actions outside the prison to protect Molina should the jailers decide to torture his friend for information. Molina, likewise, has secrets of his own regarding his life and future that he keeps from Valentin for his own reasons.

Yes, it is dark. Yes, it is told only in dialogue. Yes, it has little action beyond the plot of movies and what little these men can do in their cells to survive. And yes, it revolves around the hardships of two men hopeless imprisoned. 

But there is so much more that is compelling about this book. Little by little, Puig reveals more and more about each character, his dreams and frustrations to flesh them out slowly, casually, constantly adding minute changes in them with each conversation to make readers sympathetic or angry with each man.

I loved its bleakness, its confusion, its subtlety, and its quality of the unknown that drives the plot forward. It is a book difficult to put down, tantalizing with its revelations, and spare in its descriptions. But altogether it is a gripping book that forces readers to pay attention and discover the truth about these men and their dreams, right up to the final pages and the surprises revealed there.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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

Vargas Llosa, Mario. The Storyteller

There is just something about this novel of an Amazonian anthropologist and a native "Storyteller" who travels among vanishing tribes to tell their stories that conveys a similar tone through its narration as The Kiss of the Spider Woman. Both are wonderful, dark, confusing tales told by interesting characters in unusual settings, and which brings new light to complex, foreign situations.

Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison

The true memoir of a man serving a 15-year sentence in San Quentin prison in the early 1900s. Riveting first-hand accounts of the men and guards in this typically squalid, unfeeling atmosphere. Highly recommended. (previously reviewed here)

My Life in Prison

Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison. New York: Mitchell Kinnerley. 1912. Print

First Sentences:

I was broke. I had not eaten in three days. 

I had walked the streets for three nights. Every fibre of my being, every precept of my home training protested against and would not permit my begging.

I saw persons all about me spending money for trifles or luxuries. I envied the ragged street urchin as he took a nickel in exchange for a newspaper and ran expectantly to the next pedestrian. But I was broke and utterly miserable.

Have you ever been broke?

Have you ever been hungry and miserable, not knowing when or where you were going to get your next meal, nor where you were going to spend your next night?

Description:

I recently went through a period when I was drawn to prison books that describe life behind bars, particularly accounts written at the turn of the 20th century. It was fascinating to read these eye-witness accounts of men, prison life, guards, food, solitary, parole hearings, and, for some, eventual release into the world. 

While you may not be immediately attracted to this subject, let me tell you these memoirs have all the elements in spades for great reads: interesting characters, unusual plot, and high-quality writing. These books prove that, in the hands of an observant, sensitive, and skilled writer, any topic can be gripping and moving to read. To avoid them is to miss an opportunity to see a world and its inhabitants invisible to most people but, of course, well-known to criminals.

One of the best historical prison memoirs, in my opinion, is My Life in Prison by Donald Lowrie. In the early 1900s, Lowrie, ravenously hungry, steals a watch and purse (together worth about $100), is apprehended and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in San Quentin prison. Sentences were meant to be punitive in those days, as was every minute of the time spent behind bars.

Through his careful descriptions, readers immediately recognize that Lowrie, the narrator, is neither a low-life habitual criminal nor a violent, evil man. His words, descriptions, and reasoning shows an intelligent, sensitive observer of the men around him, his world of incarceration, and of himself. Step by step he calmly describes his short trial, sentencing, and initial walk into his new home where he is to be locked up for 15 years -- seemingly forever.

His first impressions are about the small details of his prison life, one of "long days and nights of chloride, of lime, [and] the carbonized atmosphere of jail."

Disinfectants are typical of jail; they are responsible for the "jail smell"; they are the mute apologies for a paucity of soap and water and the absence of God's sunshine....Jail atmosphere is always several degrees lower than that of the outside world -- it is always cellar-like. 

He describes the men he lives with who have committed minor as well as major crimes. Through their conversations and Lowrie's thoughts, these men do not appear as animals with untamed violence that must be treated with harsh means. These are men, like Lowrie, who faced challenges in their lives and responded quickly to steal, break, or harm something or someone. And they have been caught and given very long sentences as was the manner in those days. Their lives are now in the prison where they work in the jute mill, live in cells, and eat silently with others who also watch the days pass. 

In this era, there are no gangs, drugs, or rapes that have come to represent prison life in modern-day writings. This is a group of ordinary men who live an incredibly restricted existence of silence, punishment, and complete lack of opportunities to make any choices whatsoever: food, activities, conversations, clothes, hair, exercise, etc. It is this lack of self-direction that weighs the heaviest on them.

Of course, there are shocking occurrences related by Lowrie, including the punishment of wearing a special strait-jacket that trusses up the entire body from head to foot like a mummy. The man being punished is left for hours and sometimes even days encased in this jacket without the ability to move anything. It's a punishment that did drive men to insanity -- all for a small prison infraction. Lowrie calmly, intelligently details the bad food, riots, and other run-ins with guards and wardens. He also describes the silence that occurs in the evening before a court-decreed execution, and the policy where the dead man's clothes, if fairly new, are reassigned to a new prisoner, an action that disgusts Lowrie:

There was something unspeakably horrible about it. You smile! ... How would you like to be compelled to wear such clothing? How would you like to have your son, or brother, or father compelled to wear it?

What there is in these pages are friendships, stories of previous lives both in and out of prisons, and the sad and (sometimes) lighter daily life of these people that make this memoir so deeply affecting. The power of this book is the careful observations and conversations with inmates, guards, and the warden. Lowrie reveals their individual strengths and weaknesses, as well as their fears and sorrows. 

My Life in Prison is a challenging book which exposes readers to the realities of people experiencing prison life. It can be shocking, but overall there are never gratuitous descriptions of violence or horrors. Lowrie tells what he sees and hears, honestly, compassionately, and often sadly. That is all, and that is good enough for me. I loved it.

[Spoiler alert: In Lowrie's second book, My Life Out of Prison, we learn he was paroled after serving 10 years in San Quentin. In this second book, he describes his struggles with adapting to the outside world and his eventual success creating a position where he can assist former prisoners adapt to the outside world. He becomes a renown prison reform speaker and advocate for prisoners' rights. Equally well-written it is definitely worth reading as a follow-up to Lowrie's fascinating life and work.]

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

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

Lowrie, Donald. My Life Out of Prison 

Followup to My Life in Prison that details Lowrie's life after being released, working and lecturing for prison reform. An excellent read about a fascinating life and commitment to change.

Number 1500. Life in Sing-Sing 

A man voluntarily goes undercover and is committed to Sing-Sing prison in the early 1900s to reveal what life behind bars is really like. Fantastic glimpse into early prison life and the men who populate and oversee these prisons.

Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life 

Modern, true account of an English teacher who works with prisoners who have lived long terms in solitary confinement. Together, she and the prisoners discuss passages and plays from their cells that prevent them from seeing either the teacher or the others in their own cells. Riveting. (Previously reviewed here.)

Earley, Pete. The Hot House: Life inside Leavenworth Prison 

Reporter Earley spent almost two years interviewing prisoners deemed the most dangerous and incarcerate to long terms in the worst federal prison in the US. Similarity in revelations with My Life in Prison, but this shows a contemporary prison of 1987-1989 with deplorable conditions and prisoners much more violent and hardened than Lowrie or Number 1500 portrayed.

Denfeld, Rene The Enchanted

The "enchanted place" is a prison where the unnamed author writes from his death row cell. This fictionalized tale of life without names, without hope, with difficult lives and motivations, is sad, tragic, and anonymous. Yet there is a possible future through a woman and a priest who work with these men to have their cases re-examined and possibly change their sentencing. But not every prisoner, as we find out, want to stay his execution.

Shakespeare Saved My Life

Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

"Oh, man, this is my favorite freaking' quote."

What professor wouldn't like to hear a student enthuse so much over a Shakespeare play - a Shakespeare history play, no less! And then to be able to flip open the two-thousand-page Complete Works of Shakespeare and find the quote immediately: "When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound"!

He smacks the book as he finishes reading. Meanwhile, I'm still scrambling to find the quote somewhere in Henry the Fourth, Part One.

Description:

Just imagine yourself as a 17-year-old boy, a fifth-grade dropout, in court facing the death penalty for your involvement in a random murder of a stranger. Advice from your family is to plead guilty and accept whatever the court gives you in order to escape execution.

The verdict: a life sentence with no possibility of parole, no appeal of the sentence, and incarceration at a juvenile and then an adult prison - mostly in solitary confinement. For the rest of your life. And you are only 17.

Such is the fate of Larry Newton, depicted in Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard by Laura Bates. Newton went to jail as a teen, spent 10 years in solitary confinement, stabbed a guard, lead a prison riot, had several escape attempts, and in general was angry at the world, himself, and life. 

Enter Laura Bates, a professor at Indiana State University and prison volunteer who had been going inside the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana to teach classes for prisoners pursuing undergraduate degrees. 

In 2000 she was allowed to teach several prisoners in the supermax portion of the prison, the solitary confinement section that housed the most violent of men. Her goal was to read and discuss Shakespeare with these prisoners, seemingly an absurd notion. 

But Bates reasoned that these prisoners would relate to the ambition, violence, murder, and revenge portrayed in the plays. She hoped that familiarity with these situations and themes would create discussion among the prisoners and her about their experiences with human psychology, social pressures, behavior, and punishment.

In the supermax, she met Newton, the man with the most violent history, but also with one of the brightest minds. "Met" does not exactly describe their first encounter. For these sessions, Bates had to sit on a folding chair in an empty area surrounded by four blank, solid doors of the solitary confinement cells. Her only view of the four prisoners in her class was via a small slot in each man's solid iron door where they received their food. They cannot see each other, can barely see her, and must talk with faces pressed against that rectangular slot.

Newton responds to one of the first readings Bates gives the men, the soliloquy from Richard II delivered from Richard's prison cell. Dialogue between Newton and the prisoners soon arises about the meaning and relevance of "fortune's slaves" and predetermination. Newton reasons that Shakespeare might have done time in prison for his accurate portrayal of the thoughts Richard feels while pacing inside his cell, the most common activity of prisoners according to Newton. 

Newton becomes the leader of these classes, asking insightful questions and encouraging dialog among the solitary prisoners. Bates later even asks him to create a teaching packet based on his questions for other prisoners outside of the program to learn about Shakespeare's themes. His packets contain discussion questions for Macbeth, King John, Hamlet, and other plays. He and others in solitary write their own versions of Romeo and Juliet and other plays which are performed by prisoners in the regular prison population. Of course, Newton and his fellow playwrights cannot attend.

Shakespeare Saved My Life tells a bittersweet story. It's not always a pretty picture, but the book honestly shows the environment of these men, their complete lack of control and decision-making regarding any aspect of their lives, and their limited opportunities to improve their minds. Hanging over each page is the realization that Newton is in prison forever, no matter his intelligence or positive influence in spreading the thoughts of Shakespeare to his fellow inmates.

But the book succeeds over and over in recalling the discussions with Newton and others, their probing new theories about about the motivation of Shakespeare's characters, and the repeated examples that show the Bard created situations, people, and actions that still ring true 400 years later, even to men behind bars. Professor and prisoner, together and alone, expand their awareness about the completely different life in existance outside their own world.

A fantastic book, intriguing, and eye-opening on many levels. 

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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

Lowrie, David. My Life in Prison  

Memoirs of a man sentenced to 15 years in San Quentin in the early 1900s, He intelligently and compassionately describes the ordinary people incarcerated there, all aspects of the prison life, and even the torture of solitary confinement and the early version of the straight jacket. Fascinating, riveting reading. 

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare  

Absolutely the best book for general readers to understand each of Shakespeare's plays, with historic background, significant passages, insight into motivation, explanation of Renaissance themes and word plays, and more to make any Shakespeare play understandable and enjoyable. Fantastic. [Previously reviewed on this blog.]