The Shawshank Redemption Cool Hand Luke Dead Man Walking

The Farm: Life Inside Angola Prison American Me OZ (HBO series)

Thanks to Robert Boswell, my long-suffering friend and mentor, and to Thom Jones, Judith Grossman, Jim McPherson, and Fred Dillen for their advice and encouragement. I’m grateful to my family—Mom and Dad, my bro, Mac, and Mimi—for their love and support. Thanks, too, to my misfit friends for their peculiar brand of abusive encouragement. Brü, Ad, Finkel, Johnny Mac, John Greenman, Brett Block, Slodish, Devin, Kath, Mark Baechtel, Ed Ungvarsky, Eric Gemmen, Levine, Ollie & Leslie, and the U of I Communications Crowd.

Finally, a high five to my editor, Sean Desmond, to my agent, Kim Witherspoon, and to the inestimable Jon Karp, el hombre más macho de todo.

I also owe a great debt to Pete Early for his reporting and his outstanding book, The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison (Bantam, New York, 1992).