Selected Product:
| In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison
Paperback
Author: Jack Henry Abbott
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 1991-01-02
ISBN-10: 0679732373
ISBN-13: 9780679732372
List Price: $12.95
Average Customer Rating:
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A visionary book in the repertoire of prison literature. This is a 37 year old man's account of 25 years behind bars.
Articulate Anger
| Customer Rating: | I had heard a lot about "In the Belly of the Beast" and its' author, Jack Henry Abbott when I bought this book a few years back. I finally read it this week and I can see what all the hoopola was about. However, I am challenged as to what to make of it. The impression one gets is that the US prison system is out of control and is manned by psychopathic guards and wardens. Mr. Abbott would have us believe that it is the guards who are the dangerous ones; the cons are merely challenging. The brutality that inmate Abbott suffers seems inhuman. As I read, I kept reminding myself of the adage that there are no guilty inmates; at least not if you ask them. Personally, I'd still feel better if I knew that some agency at least looked into what Mr. Abbott tells us in his book. What he says is hard to fathom.
What makes "In the Belly of the Beast" so impressive is how articulate Jack Henry Abbott is. His literary style may or may not have benefitted from a good editor; I don't know. However, he is impressively well read and has obviously done a great deal of study in literature, philosophy, politics, etc. He cites many learned men and appears to have comprehended their writings very well. He is a Marxist/Communist which becomes somewhat understandable as he explains his whole life as a victim of oppression. The real question is; who is the victim. Abbott essentially says he has spent his whole teenage and adult life in penal institutions because he shop-lifted one day. It seems that "In the Belly of the Beast" should come with a second opinion attached to it. I rate it high because, even if it turns out to be mostly fiction, it's an incredible story. This is a brutal book but, then, that's what the author meant it to be. Read it with caution. |
Can't rank it two and a half stars, so..............
| Customer Rating: | I spent twelve and a half years in prison, but I have to agree with the correction professionals who have commented previously. The book is interesting in terms of describing what life behind the walls is like, but at some point, you have to take some responsibility for what you have done and where you are at, and Jack never seems to do that.
I read this book during my first year of incarceration and was truly stunned. Heck, I even put him up on a dais. Jack is the MAN! Jack is the MAN! Then, as the years passed (whilst staring at the tops of trees over the prison walls), my perspective moved to something less black and white.
My birth parents abandoned me. I hated the peeps that adopted me. I was smoking coke. I was doing steroids. I hit DYS and schools kicked me out. I was hanging out with the wrong people.
But it wasn't their fault.
I made the decisions that ended me up in prison for the best years of my life (23 to 36 - woot, where did my hairline go??). I decided to smoke base and shoot roids and rebel against that o sooooo terrible system. I made the decision to stick guns in peoples faces and rob them.
Ya dig your grave and, durn it, you have to eventually lie in it.
Prison wasn't nice. I saw men OD, hang themselves, and die right in front of me from multiple knife wounds. I was in riots and brutal fights. I witnessed it all, and it definitely left a whole lot of scars.
But it was me that brought me there. Not the drugs. Not the social inequality. Just my own decisions.
Actions and consequences, Jack, actions and consequences.
And please don't read his second book - it's pathetic.
A good book for describing the day to day life of prison and the attitudes that develop from it (I still don't like cops and have to sit at the far end of the restaurant so no one is behind me). But the whole "It's not my fault - it's the system" theme runs thin rather quickly.
Recommend A Day in the Life (I lived three houses down from Alex Solz prior to the feds catching up with me) or The Hothouse over this.
Finally (and another example of the carry over prison scarring issues), I have heard that Jack turned informant after his return to the Big House (before hanging himself).
Babbling........ shutting up now - just read it. |
Book of questionable accuracy by a noted sociopathic murderer
| Customer Rating: | | The only reason to buy this book is that royalties go to the widow of the man Jack Henry Abbott murdered shortly after his infamous parole engineered by Norman Mailer. Sadly, it if wasn't for this book, and Abbott successfully manipulating Mailer's over-inflated ego, Abbott's victim would still be alive. |
A Few Good Points
| Customer Rating: | In general, I found the book to be confusing yet redundant. Abbott's ramblings on philosophy and over-drawn analogies make for a difficult read. His lamentations of the treatments of how prisoners are treated by the prison staff are muddled and made less effective by the way he treats the prison guards and other prisoners. His argument that prison makes someone a hardened violent person is highly debatable: does prison make you bad, or would you have been bad even if you had not gone to prison? This is almost certainly an arguable point that cannot be decided one way or the other.
In short, a person is sent to prison for a crime they have committed. It is not supposed to be enjoyable or pleasant because it punishment for a crime they have committed. While the American penal system is obviously not perfect, I hardly think that it is to blame for the making of career criminals and that some personal accountability must be assigned. Abbott adamantly denies any responsibility for his actions. Even if the prison hierarchy was responsible for his extended stay in prison, he must be held responsible for the overt act which led to his incarceration after being released from the juvenile center. |
Pathetic attempt at glorification
| Customer Rating: | | Mr. Abbott's writing successfully manipulated many literati into helping him be released from prison, only to murder within a few days of release. His rationalizations are well-written, but now ring totally hollow. |
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