Iron House: Stories from the Yard
Jerome Washington. QED Press, $18.95 (166pp) ISBN 978-0-936609-33-1
A vivid account of life behind bars, the prisoners and those who guard them, this collection of impressions, some as brief as a sentence, is searing. Washington was imprisoned-we're not told why-from 1972 to 1989, part of that time at Attica, New York's maximum-security prison, and met con artists, sex addicts, psychotics and dreamers. There are Jomo, who taught him how to escape without leaving the walls; Little Black, who turned a can of tuna into a banquet; and Julio, who smiled as a gang of guards beat him to death. Washington sees most of the warders as small-souled and brutal, yet as much imprisoned as those they guard. On his release, he finds the outside world paranoid, populated by prisoners of their own desperation. (Oct.)
Details
Reviewed on: 12/12/1994
Genre: Nonfiction
Paperback - 166 pages - 978-0-679-76405-2