False Starts - by Malcolm Braly (Paperback)

About the Book

After getting arrested for petty burglary as a teenager, Braly couldn't get a break and spent much of his life behind bars. This is his searing autobiography, from the author of Shake Him Till He Rattles and On the Yard.

Book Synopsis

FALSE STARTS

"It seemed clear to me I had always known I was going to jail. When I had bolted Redding to try to join the Navy, I had known. When I had told Percy, "We'll be back," I had known. When I had followed George into the all-night diner, I had known. I had served more time for a handful of inept burglaries than most men would have served for killing a police officer, and the prison was only my chosen instrument in the willful destruction of my own life."

Malcolm Braly spent the better part of his life behind bars. Arrested for a botched teenage burglary, he made one mistake after another, always returning to the institution that turned a sensitive young man into a hardened con. This is his story, an indictment of both his own failings and those of a system that seeks to reform those weaknesses, but instead only reinforces them. From foster child to delinquent to armed robber to escaped convict, we follow Braly as he chases after his freedom--continually confronted by his own self-destructive actions--before turning to the outlet of writing that allowed him to succeed.

Review Quotes

"Braly's remarkably moderate and candid memoir, never hymns his childhood unhappiness."-London Review of Books "The quality of his writing is superb, engrossing and compelling."-Noel Byrne, criminal justice instructor "Braly does for prisons what Kesey did for the insane asylum." - Publishers Weekly