20 Years of Non-Fiction

Final installment of the “20 Years” series. I saved the best for last. The following ten books on mastery and self-discovery have been constant companions to me over the years. The discipline and daily practice of words on the page in my own novels might have saved my life and remapped the neuronal landscape of my fidgety brain, but it is these books that pointed the way forward and kept me on the path. If you feel adrift or unsatisfied or enslaved, crack open any of these masterworks and break on through to the other side. Wishing you big Momentum. Always.

• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield—Mom saw this author on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday a decade ago and sent me his book. I have probably read it 10 times over the last 10 years. I recently wrote Mr. Pressfield and told him what a massive impact War of Art has had on my life. I included a few of my books. Books that would not have been written were it not for this superb little manifesto on overcoming resistance. Last month he wrote me back! Big moment in my world.
• The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer—My friend Chad left me this book when he transferred to another prison. One of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received. Not only do I force this book on all of my friends, it’s also woven into the plot of my upcoming novel, The Law of Momentum.
• Atomic Habits by James Clear—When I stumbled and lost my way a few years ago, the day I turned shit around was the day I turned to the opening page of this book which had been sitting in my locker collecting dust for months. “You don’t rise to level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”
• Focus by Daniel Goleman—Maybe it’s because I’ve had a massive head injury, but I love learning about the brain. Most people cite Emotional Intelligence as Mr. Goleman’s magnum opus, but this is the one that started it all for me.
• The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz—Toltec wisdom. Simple and elegant. Be impeccable with your word, don’t take anything personally, don’t make assumptions, and always do your best.
• 10% Happier by Dan Harris—His live meltdown on Good Morning America is what started this fantastic journey. This book makes the case for meditation as a non-religious, mind-expanding, life-enriching practice.
• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen—“A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild. But whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will, bring forth.”
• A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle—Reading this one for the second time right now. The first time was in disciplinary confinement at Century Correctional Institution in 2009. After nine months in the hole, I came out weighing 132 pounds with bones jutting from my face, but I also came out with a better understanding of who I was (immaculate awareness, consciousness, the witness) and who I was not (the chatty, judgmental, and incessant voice in my head).
• Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse—This is going to sound cliché, but this tiny book on one of the most gentle way-showers the world has ever known radically changed my life. If you’ve never read it and you’re a seeker, this is mandatory reading.
• The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant—There was this dude who lived in the next bunk at Okaloosa who was constantly getting high. His grandfather, who clearly loved him, used to send him 3 or 4 books every month. But he was obviously too wasted to read. I bought this from him for a single ramen soup. Best money I ever spent. The book is probably 100 years old, but it’s a masterclass on everyone from Plato to Spinoza to Kant to Nietzsche to Russell and all philosophers in between. Not something to read on autopilot but if you’re interested in the subject, highly recommended.

20 Years of Memoir

“This is not a memoir. Memoirs are for chicks…”

I remember exactly where I was when I scribbled these words into my notebook, the first words of my third novel, On the Shoulders of Giants. It was early 2015 and I was at Blackwater River Correctional facility, commonly referred to as “Sweetwater” by the inmate population back then. Memoirs are for chicks. Not sure why I began the story of Izzy and Pharaoh and Scarlett this way. Probably because I was reading Eat Pray Love at the time, the quintessential chick book.

Sweetwater is nowhere near as sweet these days. I just had a buddy there get his face slashed from orbital bone to the corner of his mouth. A quiet, non-gang-affiliated, middle-aged black dude who minds his own business and respects everyone. They permanently disfigured this guy so they could take their time emptying the few soups he had in his locker while he was getting medical attention. Pathetic.

But I’m getting sidetracked here. I guess being so near the end of this long prison sentence has got me looking back. The point of this was to share the 10 best memoirs I’ve read over the last 20 years. So here we go…

• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert—Loaded with wisdom, humor, and spectacular writing. I know this book by heart. Even though it’s been a decade since I last read it, I can still vividly remember multiple passages: the soccer game, the paragraph on the word “harbor,” her description of the meditative experience… But her riff on the Oak and the Acorn was so profoundly instrumental in my own development that I quoted it in my own little hybrid memoir. Twice.
• Corrections in Ink by Keri Blakinger—Possibly the best memoir I’ve ever read. Especially on the subjects of addiction and incarceration. Ms. Blakinger is fluent in both the Ivey league and the underworld, and her storytelling style is equal parts gritty and poetic. The world is fortunate that she tamed her demons and shook off her chains in time to tell this story.
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama—I’ve read this one a couple times too. The former President wrote this well before his historic run to the White House in 2008. Although he has been dismissed as a “far left progressive” by those who would view him as the enemy no matter what he believed or wrote, this book is a meditation on pragmatism and moderation and working together. And a masterclass on how we arrived at this point in our nation’s history by a constitutional law scholar.
• Whip Smart by Melissa Febos—I wrote an essay about Ms. Febos that is included in my own hybrid memoir, Letters to the Universe, called “Back to Work.” It focuses on a couple letters we exchanged when I was in solitary confinement in 2016. This book is her first, a memoir on the time she spent working as a dominatrix in a Manhattan dungeon.
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott—A must for aspiring writers. One of the best books on the craft ever written.
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls—And I thought my family was dysfunctional. I have sent this book to many of my incarcerated female friends at Lowell. This is one of my favorite books of all time, irrespective of genre. I’ve never seen the movie, but I know Woody Harrelson played the father.
• On Writing by Stephen King—I came across many of my other favorite books by combing through his reading lists in the back. (The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.) Stephen King is a national treasure.
• Wild by Cheryl Strayed—There is quote in this book that is foundational for me: “Life is the story that we tell ourselves in our heads…”
• The Dirt by Motley Crue—I wasn’t really a fan of the band or their music when I picked this up. I mean, I was familiar with “Home Sweet Home” and “Wild Side” and “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”. After all, I am a child of the ’80s. But this book, with its bottle of Jack on the cover, is compulsively readable. Maybe the best rock memoir of all time.
• We’re All Doing Time by Bo Lozoff—A book that changed my life. It is still free to prisoners from the Human Kindness Foundation. Bo and his wife Sita spent decades visiting death row and maximum-security units teaching men and women meditation and yoga. If you’ve ever read Consider the Dragonfly, you’ll remember it as the book that Smoke left CJ.

20 Years of Fiction

In a couple months I’ll hit a major milestone in my prison odyssey, the 20-year mark. That world out there has changed so much over the last two decades. I remember sitting in my cell, watching the news as Hurricane Katrina decimated New Orleans in 2005, thinking how I was just buying crack in a 9th Ward housing project a couple months before. If someone would’ve run up to me back then and said “Dude! There’s a hurricane coming!” my response would’ve been something like “And???” It’s crazy to call myself lucky after wasting so much of my life in prison, but I consider myself a very lucky man. Fortunate to have survived my own ignorance. Blessed to have transcended my old knucklehead self. Grateful to have a release date.

There is such a thing as criminal menopause. Most 50-year-old prisoners neither think nor act anything like the younger, more impulsive versions of ourselves. Years in isolation will do that to a man.

One misconception of institutional life is that it is nonstop danger and violence. Pure adrenaline. This has not been my experience. There are patches of turbulence, for sure. But for the most part, prison life is monotonous. This is why so many of us turn to books. As a character in my favorite David Mitchell novel once pointed out, “Though books are no true escape, they will keep a mind from scratching itself raw.”

The following is a collection of books that have kept me company over these last 20 years of incarceration. Not just any old books.  Masterworks. I selected ten in no particular order. Just the best of the best.

• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell—I almost gave up in part one. What a colossal mistake that would have been. This is one of those books I return to every few years. Gas.
• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr—I read his Pulitzer Prize-winning All the light We Cannot See first. Terrific novel. But this one is even better.
• The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt—Not sure why I even picked this one up. But once I did, I could not put it down. Such memorable characters. Awesome book.
• The Kingkiller Chronicle by Patrick Rothfuss—I keep hearing unconfirmed rumors that number three in this masterful series is finally out. I’m not a fantasy reader, but the story of Kvothe transcends genre.
• I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb—A novel about twins and schizophrenia. My friend Greg recommended this to me in B dorm at Okaloosa in 2017. I was on bunk check from the first page to the last. Instant classic.
• A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin—Someone forced Game of Thrones on me at Century Correctional in 2007. I read the first couple pages and thought “Nah.” Again, I’m not a fantasy guy. But then we went on lockdown for a stabbing, and I was stuck in my cell with no one to keep me company but Bran and Arya and Jon Stark and the Lannisters. For the next 10 years, I was back and forth between the Florida Panhandle and Westeros.
• The Nix by Nathan Hill—Brilliant writing. I’ve been thinking about this one a lot lately with the DNC convention coming up in Chicago. He nails the ’68 riots. But this is a love story at heart.
• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn—One of the greatest twists in modern fiction… I heard they made a movie out of it, but I’d be willing to bet that no director could do on the screen what Ms. Flynn does on the page.
• The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner—I read this around the time I started writing the Miranda Rights series. The author illustrates the incarcerated mother’s regret and pain as if she herself was serving a life sentence.
• Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace—A 1,000-page novel with hundreds of footnotes that require a separate bookmark. In the movie about this author, who sadly committed suicide a little over 15 years ago, he said that when the mailman dropped the advance copy on his porch it sounded like a bomb going off. Some of the most hilarious and tragic and brilliant writing I’ve ever come across. A difficult but highly rewarding read.