In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison

A visionary book in the repertoire of prison literature. When Normal Mailer was writing The Executioner's Song, he received a letter from Jack Henry Abbott, a convict, in which Abbott offered to educate him in the realities of life in a maximum security prison. This book organizes Abbott's by now classic letters to Mailer, which evoke his infernal vision of the prison nightmare.

Author: Jack Henry Abbott
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 01/02/1991
Pages: 192
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 7.98h x 5.28w x 0.51d
ISBN13: 9780679732372
ISBN10: 0679732373
BISAC Categories:
- Social Science | Sociology | General
- Biography & Autobiography | Personal Memoirs
- Social Science | Penology

About the Author
Born in Michigan in 1944, Jack Henry Abbott spent most of his childhood in foster care and his teen years in various detention centers. While serving a long sentence for killing a fellow inmate, he wrote to Norman Mailer and offered to write a truthful depiction of life in prison. Mailer agreed, and with his help Abbott published In the Belly of the Beast. Abbott died in prison in 2002.