Jack Henry Abbott
Jack Henry Abbott | |
---|---|
Born | Jack Henry Abbott January 21, 1944 Alden, New York , U.S. |
Occupation | Career criminal |
Period | 1981–1987 |
Subject | Prison life |
Jack Henry Abbott (January 21, 1944 – February 10, 2002) was an American criminal and
Abbott described his life as being a "state-raised convict", spending much of his life since age 12 in confinement in state facilities, including solitary confinement. He wrote that because of confinement with other violent offenders from whom he could not escape, he developed a subjective perspective that every encounter was potentially threatening.[1]: 71
Early life
Abbott was born on January 21, 1944, at
Prison and release
In 1965, aged 21, Abbott was serving a sentence for forgery in a Utah prison when he stabbed another inmate to death. He was given a sentence of three to 23 years for this offense, and in 1971 his sentence was increased by 19 years after he escaped and committed a bank robbery in Colorado. In prison, he was rebellious and spent much time in solitary confinement.
In 1977, Abbott read that author Norman Mailer was writing about convicted killer Gary Gilmore. Abbott wrote to Mailer, alleging that Gilmore was largely embellishing his experiences, and offered to write about his time in prison in order to provide a more factual depiction of life in prison. Mailer agreed and helped to publish In the Belly of the Beast, a book concerning life in the prison system consisting of Abbott's letters to Mailer.
Mailer endorsed Abbott's attempts to gain parole. Abbott was released to parole in June 1981, despite the misgivings of prison officials, one of whom questioned Abbott's mental state and whether he was rehabilitated, saying, "I thought ... that Mr. Abbott was a dangerous individual ... I didn't see a changed man. His attitude, his demeanor indicated psychosis."[5] After leaving prison, Abbott went to a halfway house in New York City and made the acquaintance of some of Mailer's literary friends.
Manslaughter and return to prison
At about 5 a.m. on July 18, 1981, six weeks after being paroled from prison, Abbott and two women, Véronique de St. André and Susan Roxas, went to a small cafe named the Binibon, located at 79
Fleeing to Louisiana, after some time in hiding, Abbott was recognized by a business owner, and he was detained until the police arrived to arrest him in
Apart from the advance fee of $12,500, Abbott did not receive any revenue from In the Belly of the Beast. Adan's widow successfully sued Abbott for $7.5 million in damages, which meant she would receive all the money from the book's sales.[5]
Mailer was criticized for his role in getting Abbott released and was accused of being so impressed by Abbott's evident writing talent that he did not consider the man's violent nature. In a 1992 interview in The Buffalo News, Mailer said that his involvement with Abbott was "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in".[5] Kosinski admitted that their advocacy of Abbott was, in essence, "a fraud.”[8]
Later years and death
Abbott's second book, My Return (1987), was not as popular as In the Belly of the Beast.
In 2001, Abbott appeared before the parole board. His application was denied because of his failure to express remorse, his lengthy criminal record, and his disciplinary problems in prison.[9]
On February 10, 2002, Jack Abbott hanged himself in his prison cell using a makeshift noose constructed from his bedsheets and shoelaces. He left a suicide note, the contents of which have not been made public.[10]
Views
Abbott claimed that his incarceration from the ages of 12 to 18 was the result of "not adjusting well to foster homes", and his indeterminate sentence of up to five years for "issuing a check for insufficient funds" when he was 18 was another example of a system that criminalizes and harshly punishes those it deems unfit for society.
In both his books, Abbott argues that society must reckon with its treatment of prisoners and that the prison system is fundamentally flawed, in that it treats prisoners like sub-human creatures. In In the Belly of the Beast he describes the helplessness that he says prisoners feel while at the mercy of a prison system that is seemingly never held accountable for its actions. He also hints at the subtle yet devastating effect prisons have on the whole of society. Abbott says:
We have no legal rights as prisoners, only as citizens. The only 'rights' we have are those left to their 'discretion'. So we assert our rights the only way we can. It is a compromise, and in the end, I greatly fear we as prisoners will lose—- but the loss will be society's loss. We are only a few steps removed from society. After us, come you.[11]
Psychologist
In popular culture
- In 1983, the Trinity Rep Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island produced an adaptation of In the Belly of the Beast. It was directed by Adrian Hall and featured Richard Jenkins as Abbott.[13]
- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' song "Jack's Shadow" from the album Your Funeral... My Trial (1986) was inspired by Abbott.[14]
- The Australian film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead(1988) was inspired by Abbott's life.
- Portions of In the Belly of the Beast were used in the movie Shambondama Elegy (1999), also known as Tokyo Elegy, by Ian Kerkhof.
- In 2004, a New York theater company produced In the Belly of the Beast Revisited, a play based on Abbott's first book.[15]
- In 2009, the play Binibon by Elliott Sharp and Jack Womack was presented in New York at The Kitchen, based on the 1981 killing of Richard Adan at the Binibon cafe.
- The Law & Order season 13 episode "Genius" is based on Abbott's case.
- In Psycho II, the character of Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly) can be seen reading In the Belly of the Beast. The book is later seen abandoned in the dust outside the Bates Motel.
- In the 1987 movie Stakeout, the character of Richard Montgomery (Aidan Quinn) has the book In the Belly of the Beast in his prison cell.
See also
- Jack Unterweger, an Austrian murderer who became a celebrated author of an autobiography discussing prison life while in prison and was then released and became a serial killer; after being convicted of another nine murders, he killed himself by hanging with shoelaces and a cord from the trousers of a tracksuit
- Jean Genet, ex-convict and novelist, whose works address prison life (among other topics)
- Seth Morgan, ex-convict and novelist, whose book addresses prison life and San Francisco's criminal counterculture
References
- ISBN 978-1-4548-0698-1, [1]
- ^ Lennon, John J. (July 9, 2019). "The Murderer, the Writer, the Reckoning". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
- ISBN 0-679-73237-3.
- ^ Gado, Mark. "Jack Abbott: From the Belly of the Beast". truTV. Retrieved June 24, 2010.
- ^ a b c Gado, Mark. "Jack Abbott, murder made into literary celebrity". Crime Library. Archived from the original on December 17, 2007. Retrieved November 15, 2007.
- ^ Chan, Sewell (November 12, 2007). "Mailer and the Murderer". The New York Times.
- ^ Broyard, Anatole (June 20, 1981). "Books of The Times; A Life Imprisoned". The New York Times. Retrieved June 12, 2020.
- Time Magazine. Archived from the originalon June 2, 2008. Retrieved November 15, 2007.
We pretended he had always been a writer. It was a fraud. It was like the '60s when we embraced the Black Panthers in that moment of radical chic without understanding their experience.
- ^ "Jack Henry Abbott, parole hearing, June 6, 2001, New York State Parole Commission". Retrieved November 15, 2007.
- ^ Oliver, Myrna (February 11, 2002). "Jack Abbott, 58; Convict Wrote on Prison Life". Los Angeles Times.
- OCLC 1149509761.
- ^ ISBN 1-57230-451-0.
- ^ "Adrian Hall's Adaptations of In the Belly of the Beast" (PDF). nobleworld.biz.
- ^ John H. Baker (editor). The Art of Nick Cave: New Critical Essays, Intellect Books (2013)
- ^ Summer, Elyse. "In the Belly of the Beast, Revisited, a CurtainUp review". www.curtainup.com. Retrieved September 8, 2009.
Further reading
- Fuchs, Christian [1996] (2002). Bad Blood. Creation Books.