There was a lot of prison literature floating around, esp. at the end
of the decade and the first few years of the 1970s. Sam Melville's
letters from Attica and an anthology edited by Eve Pell (the name of
which I forget) both made an impact as well. I knew Jessica Mitford
slightly and her Kind and Usual Punishment reached a broad base of
readers whom otherwise might not have paid heed, but by then I was so
immersed in the life that a perspective like hers, very much from the
outside at the 10,000 foot level, didn't reach me.
Is anybody out there teaching courses on the literature of
incarceration?
Ron Silliman
rsillima@ix.netcom.com