The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell : Confessions of a Bank Robber

Rating:
Summary: Wow! Not Your Typical Book.
Review: Joe Loya is an ex-convict, ex-bank robber turned writer whose correspondence with essayist Richard Rodriguez provides him with an anchor while he is imprisoned.

His story is appalling, violent and absolutely riveting. At times, I had to put it down because some of the things that happened to him or that he did were just so horrific. Mr. Loya writes so well, however that I kept picking this book back up again to find out what happened.

It's an amazing look into the psyche of this precocious little boy who, through the abuse he suffers from his father, slowly evolves into this manipulative criminal. This book shows us so clearly how violence and abuse affect society as a whole.

Mr. Loya's transition from bible verse spouting boy to manipulative, lying young man, to bank robber, to prisoner, to writer is a journey into a life we rarely, if ever see or want to. It is a beautifully written and detailed account of his life.

Rating:
Summary: Riveting peek into the mind of a criminal
Review: Joe Loya's book traces how a Bible-thumpin' evangelical kid grows up to be a violent thug, narrating the twists and turns in his life and in his psyche.

This is the most complete and intelligent story of a descent into criminality that I have ever read. Loya is hyper aware of the factors that drove him to choose crime as a career path and elucidates this mentality for the armchair reader. It's all here - from the sprawling Mexican barrios of East LA to the nifty get aways and the high life to the years spent in the bowels of a prison.

Loya is a highly entertaining writer and I found myself laughing loudly on several occaisions.

Ultimately, this is a story of survival and redemption....I look forward to a sequel, if there is any...to see how Loya's life ultimately turned out.

Rating:
Summary: Painfully honest story of a stunning turnaround
Review: We've all read stories of bad-guy-turns-good-in-prison, usually after some religious conversion in jail. While such happy endings feel good, one is rarely completely convinced of an essential change in the character of the convert; if circumstances change, we can easily imagine the person reverting back to his former ways. Not so with Joe Loya. HIs memoir digs so deeply into the dark parts of his soul -- in the least flattering ways possible -- we know instinctively that this is someone who knows himself completely. His redemptive turn in prison is the real thing. Indelible and moving. (And with some great bank robbing stories to boot.)

Rating:
Summary: A story that outgrew its genre
Review: While visiting New York, I saw Loya's book in a bookstore -- and then learned he would be giving a live reading in Greenwich Village. Loya, a gifted speaker and writer, tells his story with unsparing honesty, even with a touch of humor. His book can be read as a testament to the power of circumstances.

Loya's early years were happy ones. After his mother died, Loya's father became abusive, and Loya felt helpless to help himself and, especially, his younger brother. Out of this rage grew a career in crime, particularly bank robbery. By the end of his career, Loya had robbed something like two dozen banks. The end was inevitable.

Once in prison, Loya adapted. As he demonstrates vividly, the only way to survive in prison is to develop an accommodation to violent people and violent behavior. You can't show weakness. You never back down.

Loya doesn't philosophize about prison, as Jean Harris did in her books about Bedford. He was young when he entered the system and didn't have the tools of life experience or education.

Actually he bears some resemblance to Frank Abegnale, author of Catch Me If You Can, also an incidental criminal whose career began following an unstable home life. And like Abegnale, he recognizes that his life after prison was made possible only because he could start a new career.
Abegnale became a security consultant. And Loya, thanks to the mentorship of Richard Rodriguez, became a writer and performer.

Ironically, Loya's transformation comes from what many would view as a miscarriage of justice. Falsely accused of involvement in the murder of a former cellmate, Loya gets sent to solitary confinement for two years of his seven-year sentence, solely on the basis of suspicion.

During this time, Loya realizes he's starting to go mad, and he realizes he has to change. He looks back on this time as a period of transformation. Ironically, Loya never speculates on the injustice that sent him to solitary confinement for such a long period of time. In essence, he was punished for a crime he never committed, with no restitution available or even considered.

After awhile the investigation gets dropped and Loya gets returned first to the general population, then to a pre-release setting with lower security. And he's incredibly lucky to have his brother and other family members waiting on the outside. His brother helps him find low-level work till he can begin his writing and performing career.

This book is powerful as a story of a life that defies stereotypes. Loya's background combines his Hispanic heritage, his father's love of learning, his own academic achievement, the fundamentalist church that could be stifling as well as protective, and a whole lot more.

Loya's father was never punished for his abusive behavior. In retrospect, the children should have been removed from the father's custody, although the other relatives weren't especially suited to raising a bright child. Loya's grandmother couldn't read, and he vividly remembers being angry when she lied about it.

But jailing the father wouldn't have helped anybody in this family. Ironically, prison freed Joe Loya, who paid for his father's mistakes along with his own.

At his reading, Loya said most people who are in prison don't belong there: they're not harmful and we're wasting resources. He also said that he's estranged from his father, who didn't like the way he was portrayed in the book.

Joe Loya is an articulate, courageous man, who's finally found a way to make a contribution. I'm looking forward to his next book, which will be about his life after prison. And I wish we as a society would learn more from books like this one.