Hole in My Life, by Jack Gantos (2002)

The prisoner in the photograph is me.  The ID number is mine.  the photo was taken in 1972 at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky.  I was twenty-one years old and had been locked up for a year already - the bleakest year of my life - and I had more time ahead of me.

When Jack Gantos was 19-years old, he felt like he was stuck in high school, and he wasn't living at home.

I had unlimited freedom.  No supervision whatsoever.  I had spending money.  I had a fast car.  I had a fake ID.  My entire year was a grand balancing act between doing what I wanted and doing what I should, and being who I was while inventing who I wanted to be:  a writer with something important to say.

Tough times hit Jack and his family and he was offered $10,000 for college tuition, to escape his dead-end life.  He agreed to help crew a boat loaded with drugs from the Virgin Islands to New York City.  What happened during this time is what makes this a great memoir.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language, drug use, excessive alcohol consumption, rape

This book is not available at NOLS...yet!