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A 3 page book review of Jack Gantos's memoir Hole in My Life. As reviewer Christine Heppermann points out, while most award-winning children's book authors "will admit to having paid their dues, those dues generally don't include serving time in federal prison" (345). Nevertheless, award-winning author Jack Gantos' tale of prison life for smuggling drugs offers young people an insightful and thoughtfully written narrative. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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File: D0_khgantos.rtf
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prison" (345). Nevertheless, award-winning author Jack Gantos tale of prison life for smuggling drugs offers young people an insightful and thoughtfully written narrative. Gantos begins his autobiographical memoir by
admitting that prison mug shot on the cover is of himself at 21 in 1972, after he had already spent a year in prison for smuggling drugs. Immediately, Gantos addresses
his younger self as a character and begins creating characterization. He writes, "I might have been slight--but I was smart and cagey. I managed to avoid a lot of trouble
because I knew how to blend in" (Gantos 3). As this suggests, Gantoss has a knack at making himself and other characters in his narrative come alive through carefully
chosen details. The cageyness of his father and his accurate eye for judging character is another characterization that Gantos brings alive in the first chapter of this text. A
large portion of the memoir takes place before Gantos went to prison. Gantos pictures himself as adrift, a "na?ve Jack Kerouac wannabe for whom reading was almost like taking drugs"
(Heppermann 345). While reading is generally regarded as a useful pursuit for young people, Gantos shows that it can have a downside. Rather than shape his own life, he would
escape into a book and start living someone elses. Perhaps this factor accounts for his disconnect from reality that led him to agree to sail a yacht carrying two thousands
pounds of hashish from St. Croix, where his family resided, to New York City (Heppermann 345). Gantos thought he was making the drug run for a payment of $10,000. In
reality, what he received was six years in prison. Gantos relates his rationalization for this colossal mistake. From his point of view, it was an adventure. At last, his
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