Hole in My Life [2002] - Jack Gantos

"I could blame the hollow feeling inside me on the hangover. But when the hangover passed, I knew I'd still sense that same barren internal landscape."

Hole in My Life is a powerful memoir about an aspiring young writer who ends up in federal prison after getting busted for smuggling marijuana into the United States. Straightforward, well written and fast paced, Hole in My Life is remarkably free of bitterness and self pity. It is an honest assessment of Gantos' trials and tribulations. I recommend it highly!

Jack Gantos is currently an award-winning writer of children's books. For more information about Gantos, visit www.jackgantos.com.

Literary influences cited in Hole in My Life: 

• Stop-Time, Frank Conroy
  
• The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey
• The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
• On the Road, Jack Kerouac
• Hallucinogens & Shamanism, Michael J. Harner
• The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane
• A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams
• The Delicate Prey, Paul Bowles
• A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
• Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, Peter Kropotkin
• ABC of Anarchism, Alexander Berkman
• The Comedians, Graham Greene
• Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
• On the Beach, Nevil Shute
• Martin Eden, Jack London
• Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs
• Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe
• The Thief's Journal, Jean Genet
• Papillon, Henri Charriere
• On the Yard, Malcolm Braly
• 7 Long Times, Piri Thomas 
• This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Tadeusz Borowski
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce
• The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky