I cannot imagine a better written memoir of any kind coming along any time soon, I urge you with all my heart to buy it too.A fish rots from the head down. Fish is the first breakout story to do that.įrom the LA Times: "Fish" is a beautiful book. Since life behind bars is so often exploited by television and movie re-enactments, the real story has yet to be told. He gives voice to countless others who have been exposed to an incarceration system that turns a blind eye to the abuse of the prisoners in its charge. For the first time Parsell, one of America's leading spokespeople for prison reform, shares the story of his coming of age behind bars. In an effort to silence the guilt and pain of its victims, the issue of prisoner rape is a story that has not been told. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell's experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would "own" him. The first night of his term, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he was sentenced to four and a half to fifteen years in prison. What the synopsis below misses is the lovely way he describes the relationships he built in prison, after he was raped-the man he fell in love with who later attempted to escape, the librarian who believed he was worth something and he credits with saving his life, for example. Parsell's writing is smooth and pulls you in-you get to know, and to care about, him and his life very early on. But, it is uplifting in the way that stories of people who turn something traumatic into something positive are. It is not exactly light fare, to say the least.
Fish is a powerful, painful, and hopeful story.
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