Book Log: "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos

Part A: Book Summary

Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos
Non-Fiction Book
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, 200pgs., $16.00
ISBN 978-0374430894

Best known as the author of the Joey Pigza, Jack Henry, and Rotten Ralph children's series, Jack Gantos explores much more grown-up themes in Hole In My Life, a personal memoir of the author's incarceration as a young adult. The book explores mature subject matter and should be reserved for more sophisticated young readers. In particular, there are two violent sex scenes in the novel, and drug content is a major premise. Parents should be included in the decision to assign this book.

At the age of 20, Gantos could only be labeled an “aspiring” writer. He wrote all the time, but nothing significant. He had no method for arranging his thoughts, and a recent affection for a bowl of hashish had lead to severe procrastination. Stuck in a vicious cycle of smoking hash and dope, drinking too much alcohol, and writing whatever flowed out of the newly opened doors of perception, Gantos realized he had to get it together. Someone once said, “Do what you know,” and Gantos knew drugs. He decided to try his hand at the profit-making side of the business, and struck up a deal to smuggle 2,000 pounds of hash from St. Croix to New York. St. Croix is located in the Virgin Islands, where the drug is legal. Gantos thought his cut of $10,000 would be a nice down payment on a college education, and didn't see any harm nor fowl in the deed.

While on the journey, Gantos detailed the trip in the ship's log. He saw it as a nice way to relax. He had no idea his beloved pastime would land him in prison. Shortly after reaching the north eastern coast, Gantos was arrested for his role in the drug deal. In court, he pleaded guilty and hoped for probation, but the ship's log, which had been recovered during a search of the vessel, revealed Gantos' confession.

In prison, Gantos witnessed unimaginable acts of inhumanity. On his first day, he was faced with either helping a young man who'd just been gang raped in the bathroom or leaving him behind for personal fear of becoming the next target. “It was just twenty-four hours since I had been sentenced and I knew I was in way over my head,” he wrote. (Pg. 153) During his stay in prison, Gantos worked as an x-ray technician and was exposed to many acts of prison violence, as he worked to identify and heal inmates who had been involved in brawls and other incidents.

In his spare time, Gantos recorded his daily events between the lines of a copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. He soon gained a new lease on life, even refraining from drug use in prison. He longed to get back to the real world, to try again. He wanted to go to college more than anything, so he hatched an escape plan. Gantos' escape plan, however, was based on intellect, and this time, he didn't fail. With the help of his caseworkers, Mr. Wilcox and Mr. Bow, Gantos applied for college and was accepted, and then he drafted a letter to the parole board asking them to grant his parole so that he may attend. Fifteen months after entering the penitentiary, he was released.

After leaving prison, Gantos moved to New York, got a job and an education, and eventually, became a very successful author. “The mistakes I made, the pain I endured, the time I wasted were now the smallest part of me,” Gantos wrote in the book's concluding statements. (Pg. 199) “And I'm out in the open doing what I have always wanted to do. Write.” (Pg. 200)

Three quotes:

“He had helped to sail a boatload of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he used a shopping cart to make the deliveries that his employers, Ken and Hamilton, had set up.” (Pg. 291)
While I'm very happy that the text references Hole In My Life, I'm very, very annoyed that they got the information wrong! Gantos' employers' names were Rik and Hamilton, not Ken and Hamilton! A previous editor, this really bothered me. I really just used this quotation analysis as an opportunity to point that out! I do think it is fantastic that this book stuck out as a favorite of the authors' in recent years.

“...he said that the book was as much a cautionary tale for adults as for kids. He wants adults to get the message that we should not give up on kids who are in trouble.” (Pg. 291)

This book certainly speaks to both young and old readers. The story is a cautionary tale for people of all ages because people of all ages make stupid decisions. That's exactly what happened to Gantos. And because he made a stupid decision, the court ruled against him. Not even his youthful age could save him from the jury's conviction. Gantos speaks to both young adults who have not yet had the opportunity to destroy the lives ahead of them, and to more mature individuals who may be faced with serving as a juror in a case against a youngster some day. High school educators should especially benefit from Gantos' message because they are in the prestigious position to have a positive influence on young adults faced with life decisions like Gantos.

“The success of personal experience books ... depends largely on the quality of the writing because there isn't a plot for readers to get excited about...” (Pg. 293)

Gantos' writing is lively, and he weaves a very exciting plot throughout Hole In My Life, regardless of what this statement says. The organization of the book is a little strange, and Gantos jumps back and forth in his story a few times. It works, though, and the story comes together nicely, and honestly, quite impressively. I really enjoyed this author's voice, and I would be very interested to read his works for younger children.


Part B: Creative Response
My Cautionary Tale

I thought, as a tribute to Jack Gantos, the once aspiring, now amazing writer, I would write my own “cautionary” tale, one that might both relieve me to get it all down and inspire others in situations similar to mine.

Almost nine years ago, I graduated from high school, and had absolutely no idea what to do with my life. I was the eleventh smartest student in my class, and I had just received a measly $500 scholarship to go to college and major in English. My parents, who, bless their hearts, only possessed high school diplomas, didn't know squat about getting their child into college; nor did they care. They thought I was smart enough already. I'd won the county spelling bee in eighth grade, for Christ's sake! I was a quiz bowl genius for a while! I was basically a straight-A kid! Surely, I knew enough about the world already, and I should just proceed to working so that I could generate an income. That's what my parents thought, anyway.

Their stern hands sent me into the arms of man I would marry at the age of 19, a man who would prove to be more stern than I can remember Mom and Dad ever being. The day after our wedding, I knew it was a mistake. He changed like night giving way to the day. I've read before that there is a characteristic male who, once he marries a woman, thinks he possesses her. I think he may have fit in that classification. The most positive thing that happened to me during this time is that, a year after graduating high school, I enrolled in college. I figured it out on my own and got in. But I didn't know what I was doing and used up credits that wouldn't count for a thing in the future. I was also in many classes with my husband, and he made me cry in public all the time, so college then was just no fun. After a couple years of fighting, we decided the best way to fix our marital issues was to have a child. (I would never call this particular decision a mistake, because I am forever grateful for our bright and beautiful five-year-old daughter. But, my life soon took a direction I did not expect. This could be a cautionary tale. I'm happy things turned out the way they did; I can handle it. But, some might not want their plans put on hold and for their life to take the route mine did.)

During this time, to support our family, I also took a job at our local newspaper. I started out making telemarketing calls from the office in the evenings for minimum wage, then was hired on as the legal clerk. One day, I looked upstairs, towards the editor's office, and said, “I want that.” Soon after, I was moved to a news desk, then a paginator's, then the editor's. I served as editor for three years, during which time I helped to vanquish a publisher who squandered money from the company by the truckloads. I also served on a corporate committee, with honest-to-god corporate managers. (I suppose they considered me one, too, since they selected me.) But in my house, at my newspaper, I had reached a “glass ceiling,” if you will. I was making a very low salary compared to other editors at papers my size and circulation, and upper management (all four layers of it) wasn't budging on the budget. I was fed up. I couldn't move up the ladder to a more prestigious news network, like Gannett, either, because they hire applicants with degrees, and I had none. I had put that all on hold three years prior when I took the editor's position and became pregnant. I couldn't do all three at the same time.

The marriage sent me into a downward spiral. I was manic depressive and stayed in the crazy hospital to get my medicines regulated a total of three times. The last time I was in there, I told them I couldn't go home without knowing that things would be different this time. I felt, all along, that I wasn't my problem, that my problems were my problem. They met with him and, I suppose he didn't get it. My husband told me he'd give me a week, to see how I acted after that, and then he'd decide if our marriage was worth saving. He obviously thought I was the problem, but it's funny – no one else in our lives thought I was.

One night (he worked the midnight shift and had been sleeping all day), he woke up for work, and I had cooked him Beenie Weenies and macaroni and cheese for dinner. This is the same man whom I'd seen on several occasions pour Beenie Weenies in a can, fresh from the gas station without microwaving, down his through because he didn't have a spoon. But tonight, he didn't want measly Beenie Weenies and mac and cheese. Man want meat and potatoes! He yelled at me, told me what a worthless bitch I was, and stormed off for work. By the time he called me to apologize, I had called my mother and asked her if leaving was the right thing to do. But I had already decided, by the time I dialed her number, that I was going to leave. When he called, I told him, somberly but defiantly, that I could no longer live this way and was going to divorce him.

We worked as a team to move of our apartment together, at the same time; I got a new place and he moved back in with his mother. We elected shared parenting of our daughter. He keeps her half the week, I keep her the other half. No one pays anyone anything. Today, we have a pretty stable relationship. It's all business with us. We're in the business of rearing a child together, and we work fine at that.

Soon after my divorce was final, I remarried to a man who nourishes my creative and intellectual sides, who supports virtually every decision I make, and who keeps me on track when I'm about to make or have made a bad one. Having been through a horrible relationship, I soon found out exactly what it was that I wanted in one. My husband today fits all the necessary criteria and then some. We just celebrated our second anniversary, and I seriously do still get butterflies when I think of him. In April of last year, I vacated my position at the paper to go back to college and pursue my degree in English. Since, I've earned a scholarship that pays pretty much all of my tuition and will as long as I desire to pursue education. I'm working as a writing tutor at my branch campus, and think I really have found my niche. I'm now looking forward to the possibility of obtaining my master's degree and maybe even teaching. Libraries are appealing to me as well. The thing is, so many doors have opened up for me! Best of all, I feel more vibrant and confident than I have in a long time. I haven't been treated for mental illness for over two years now, and I feel good about that, too. I know I wrote this as “My Cautionary Tale,” but I'm so satisfied with how my life has turned out, I don't know if caution is necessary. I suppose I'm well aware of the fact that won't kill one can make her stronger. I'm proud of my battle scars, and I'm a stronger person because of them. So, cautionary? Take it as you will. It's all in how much you enjoy the roller coaster of life.

Part C: Critical Response
1. Nonfiction helps students to read for “the application of facts/detail in the development and interpretation of thought.” What particular facts or details stand out in the book you read—were surprising or interesting—and what assertions did they support. Three examples would be nice here.

I'm going to focus here on Gantos' literary references. There are many details in the book that prove its historical accuracy, so I think lending credit to Gantos' intelligence regarding literature is called for.

Page 30 - “I wasn't buying it. It seemed to me that no amount of forgiveness would ever was away his need to be forgiven every day. He reminded me of the Flannery O'Connor story I loved, “ A Good Man is Hard to Find,” where the Misfit shoots the hugely annoying grandmother to death and then says she would have been a good woman, if somebody had been there to shoot her every minute of her life.”

I like this reference because I really love O'Connor's short story. Gantos makes this statement after watching a high school assembly where four prison inmates told their (highly staged) stories, and one of the men talks about his life as a sex criminal. The man half-heartedly breaks out in a plea for forgiveness, and Gantos makes this entertaining remark.

Page 158 – Gantos references a Zane Grey cowboy novel which was brought to him with a variety of other items by a service worker in the prison. This interests me because recently, my father-in-law read a Zane Grey triology and he was very wrapped up in it for some time. Grey was an Ohio native with ties to the Slone family. I thought it was neat to see the author referenced. In Hole In My Life, the presence of the cowboy novel is amusing, instilling suggestions of the Wild West in comparison to prison life.

Pages 138-139 - “Okay,” I said to myself. “Remember this spot and then this map.” I took thirty-nine steps to the west because I liked the movie The Thirty-nine Steps.” Then I took twenty steps north, one for each year of my life. That brought me into the bushes. “Take Fifteen Steps to Better Writing to the west then turn around and dig,” I whispered.
This is just a funny passage because Gantos created directions for finding where he buried a stash of hash by stringing together book titles. Clever, catchy, and I might just take him up on the Fifteen Steps to Better Writing reference.

2. A retired teacher, Ethel Webb, helped Hirth to see that nonfiction could allow him to “build a world and take command of my life.” What, in your book, connected to your life? If the book did not seem to work this way for you, why not? How, in other words, did your book help you to “make sense of the world.”

I connected to the book because I understood both Gantos' motivation to sell drugs and his writerly woes. First of all, my parents both barely earned their high school educations, and thought that I was smart enough, didn't need to go to college, and should get a job as soon as possible. They didn't know anything about college, and weren't about to learn how to help me go. The guidance counselor at my school was only concerned with sending the valedictorians in our class to college (even though they were the ones with full ride scholarships), and I was only 11th in my class. But I digress. My point is that I understand what it's like to be a young person on the verge of becoming a real, live, full-fledged adult. It's a scary time, and, like Gantos, I didn't know what I should do with my life. I had to live through a tumultuous first marriage, the birth of my daughter, a five-year job as the editor of a newspaper, my role in taking down an embezzling corporate manager, and getting remarried before getting back to college. It feels good, Jack, I know.

I also connected to Gantos because, while I'm not doing drugs all day long, I can't get my thoughts down in a coherent pattern, either. When it comes to writing for pleasure, I can't get myself motivated to write something I'm truly interested in. I'm a little hard on myself, too. I'm an awful critic and terribly cynical and it reflects in the amount of material I produce. Perhaps I'll have more room for leisurely writing once degrees are obtained. I'm glad Gantos finally got it together.

3. Hirth says “Whether you read a short passage…give a brief comment on why you found the excerpt exciting.” Please do that. Any passage from the book and why it was “exciting.”
Oh, I'm going to have to do a very controversial one. This just happened to be the one scene in the book that really made my jaw drop. It took my by surprise. Gantos' voice made it great; he's a fantastic story-teller. In this scene, a representative of the Muslim community at the prison approaches Gantos, a new inmate, and extends to him an offer to establish good race relations with their group members.

“So here is our offer,” he said. “Every Sunday is movie night up in the gym. During the movie the Muslim brothers will all gather in the bathroom for a little prayer meeting. What we would like once you are released into population is for you to join us in a ceremony of trust. Come meet the brothers and then we want you to pull your pants down around your knees and bend over.” (Pg. 160)

Additionally amusing is Gantos' response: “...I flipped open my journal and wrote down everything that had just happened. Nobody would believe it. I couldn't. That's why I had to write it down.” (Pg. 161) Gantos' astonishment and disbelief almost adds comic relief, although the subject matter is far from funny. Because Gantos was able to weasel his way out of the situation, as well, helps make the reader feel more comfortable at laughing with the author at this awkward and frightening situation. It's just the kind of scene you'd expect to see in a prison story, and I think Gantos, as a very intelligent writer, knows that and allows for the cliched reference.

4. He continues “just pass out a copy of a passage to be analyzed.” Choose a passage and talk about the writer’s style: verb use, figurative language, level of diction, sentence length, concrete sensory imagery—anything you can note.

“ In my writing classes, I first wrote brutal stories about prison, about New York street life, about the men I knew who had hard lives and hard hearts. And then one day I got tired of all the blood and guts and hard lives and hard hearts and began to write more stories about my childhood, like the ones I had started writing down in prison, stories which at one time I did not think were important, but suddenly had become to me the most important stories of all. They contained the hidden days of my innocence and happiness. And once I began retrieving the lost pleasures of my childhood, I began to write stories for children. And I laughed about that, too. Prison certainly wasn't funny, but with each new day it was receding into my past.” (Pg. 199)
There is beautiful parallelism displayed in this passage by Gantos. It reads like poetry. The yellow highlighted words, of course, are identical. Next, there are two instances of the phrase, “heard lives and hard hearts,” followed by a mix-up of the phrase, “important stories.” The passage ends with all words associated with positivity. Words like “innocence,” “childhood,” “pleasures,” and “laughed” help the author end his book on a high note.

5. I love Hirth’s sentence: “We teach less about more rather than more about less. We get so caught up in the what, that we forget the why. Only test makers are into recall.” How did your book address the why rather than the what?

Wow. I can't believe how perfectly this book does exhibit this question. Take a look at the following passages. Gantos' friend, Tim Scanlon, a medical student at Florida State, is going on and on about the ideology that all behavior is chemical and that the books he's reading in college is “the future.”

“It will take you back to the why of everything. Remember when you were a little kid and kept asking why and your parents gave you some half-baked answers? Well, these books get down to the root of the why. If you understand this stuff you will understand everything – religion, politics, psychology, art – the history of all human desire is entirely in our chemistry.” (Pg. 44)

And Gantos replies: “He knew great stuff about biology and chemistry and medicine. I knew something about literature and what people plotted in their hearts and thought and suspected, but he knew the secret why behind each though. I only knew how it looked once it happened, once it went splat in my face, and suddenly I wanted to know the why to everything. It seemed the most important desire I'd ever known.” (Pg. 45)

Gantos makes it abundantly clear that it's best to pursue why rather than what. I'm sure he hopes this message makes it through to his readers.


Jack Gantos is also the author of The Joey Pigza Books which include Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key, Joey Pigza Loses Control, and What Would Joey Do?