Sentence Audiobook Libro.fm

Description

A memoir of a decade in prison by a welleducated young addict known as the Apologetic Bandit

In 2003 Daniel Genis the son of a famous Soviet migr writer broadcaster and culture critic was fresh out of NYU when he faced a serious heroin addiction that led him into debt and ultimately crime After he was arrested for robbing people at knifepoint he was nicknamed the Apologetic Bandit in the press given his habit of expressing regret to his victims as he took their cash He was sentenced to twelve yearsten with good behavior a decade he survived by reading 1046 books taking up weightlifting having philosophical discussions with his fellow inmates working at a series of prison jobs and in general observing an existence for which nothing in his life had prepared him

Genis describes in unsparing and vivid detail the realities of daily life in the New York penal system In his journey from Rikers Island and through a series of upstate institutions he encounters violence on an almost daily basis while learning about the social strata of gangs the court system that sets geographic boundaries in prison yards how sex was obtained the workings of the black market in drugs and more practical goods the inventiveness required for everyday tasks such as cooking and how debilitating solitary confinement actually isall while trying to preserve his relationship with his wife whom he recently married

Written with empathy and wit Sentence is a strikingly powerful memoir of the brutalities of prison and how one man survived them leaving its walls with this book inside him one made of pain and fear and laughter and lots of other books