The over two million men and women incarcerated in state and federal penitentiaries have become America's forgotten
population. This extraordinary anthology of autobiographical prison writings brings the reader inside their silent
and hidden world.
Culled from more than four hundred submissions nationwide, the thirty-six pieces here represent works by a broad
spectrum of prisoners: young and old, unknown and infamous, minimum security check forgers and death row inmates.
The authors include notorious "Preppie Murderer" Robert Chambers; an elderly truck driver who strangled
the woman he professed to love; and a gang member recalling his violent street life. All talk in their own uncensored
words about themselves and their families, about their motives and personal demons, about committing crime and
doing time.
Just as this collection gives prisoners the rare chance to communicate who they are and what went wrong, it also
gives the reader a unique opportunity to see convicts not as hardened criminals but as human beings.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1937
The Mystery of Aunt Lilly
The Chicken
110th Street
Where I Come From
Invisible
Killed My Wife
Turned Out
A Shot in the Dark
Back in the Dayz
Martha
End of the Game
Revolving Door
From From the Inside Out
Danny
Another Day
Reflections from Death Row
What It's Like Being a Drag Queen in the Illinois Department of Corrections
Prison Break Memoirs
Grief behind Bars
Christmas: Present
What Happened to Your Message?
Upon Completing Twenty Years
Notes from Life and Death
The Ice Man Speaks
One Hundred Soldiers
A Part of Me Set Free
The Prison Pump
Freedom from Within
Hired at the Last Hour
When Student Teaches Teacher
Prison as Monastery
Joye's Story
Salvation
Reunion
The Tale of a Kite
