False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons

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FALSE STARTS

It seemed clear to me I had always known I was going to jail. When I had bolted Redding to try to join the Navy, I had known. When I had told Percy, We’ll be back, I had known. When I had followed George into the all-night diner, I had known. I had served more time for a handful of inept burglaries than most men would have served for killing a police officer, and the prison was only my chosen instrument in the willful destruction of my own life.

Malcolm Braly spent the better part of his life behind bars. Arrested for a botched teenage burglary, he made one mistake after another, always returning to the institution that turned a sensitive young man into a hardened con. This is his story, an indictment of both his own failings and those of a system that seeks to reform those weaknesses, but instead only reinforces them. From foster child to delinquent to armed robber to escaped convict, we follow Braly as he chases after his freedom–continually confronted by his own self-destructive actions–before turning to the outlet of writing that allowed him to succeed.