Why read In the Belly of the Beast?

Book cover of In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison

Book description

A collection of letters by a federal prisoner provides a candid look at life in prison, revealing his background, politics, and views on parole, rehabilitation, and capital punishment

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Why read it?

1 author picked In the Belly of the Beast as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Amir Ahmadi Arian

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After the news came out that Norman Mailer was writing a book about the life of Gary Gilmore, which came to be his magnum opus, The Executioner’s Song, he received a letter from a convict named Jack Henry Abbott. An avid reader of philosophy and literature who was also serving a life sentence, Abbott wrote to warn the renowned author against misapprehending American prisons and to teach him how to write about the violence of incarceration. The two men exchanged long, detailed letters. Eventually, Mailer collected Abbott’s letters in this book. In his letters, in a tone both detached…

From Amir's list on to understand solitary confinement.