Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
OK
Audible sample Sample
Hole in My Life Hardcover – March 26, 2002
Purchase options and add-ons
Becoming a writer the hard way
In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.
In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos – once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell – moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life. This title has Common Core connections.
Hole in My Life is a 2003 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.
- Print length208 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFarrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
- Publication dateMarch 26, 2002
- Reading age14 years and up
- Dimensions5.25 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100374399883
- ISBN-13978-0374399887
- Lexile measure840L
Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Gantos, best known for his award-winning Joey Pigza titles, mines darker material here that is as deeply compelling as his lighter fare. Using short, meaty sentences, Gantos manages to write in a way that dismisses the dubious "romance" of prison, drugs, and "life on the edge" without ever sounding didactic or heavy-handed. Older teens will appreciate his candor and sheer willingness to give them the straight story. Vigorously recommended. (Ages 13 and older) --Jennifer Hubert
From Publishers Weekly
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
Barbara Scotto, Michael Driscoll School, Brookline, MA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“A memoir, by turns harrowing and hilarious, about a huge mistake.” ―Miami Herald
“His account is remarkably free of both self-pity and self-censorship . . . This is a tale of courage and redemption, proving that a bad start in life does not have to lead to a bad life story.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“Gantos really is Everyman, but an Everyman who has landed himself into a deeper pit than most. What separates Gantos is the determination that took him out of his dreams and into a successful life as a writer. Those writerly skills are in full evidence here, in this thoughtful and provocative memoir as valuable to those who have never heard of Gantos as to those who have read all of his books.” ―Hyde Park Review of Books
“The ultimate cautionary tale.” ―Smithsonian
“This true tale of the worst year in the author's life will be a big surprise for his many fans . . .This is a story of mistakes, dues, redemption, and finally success at what he always wanted to do: write books.” ―Starred, Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
hole in my life
By Jack Gantos
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2002 Jack Gantos.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-374-39988-3
Chapter One
look straight ahead
The prisoner in the photograph is me. The ID number is mine. The photo was taken in 1972 at the medium-security Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky. I was twenty-one years old and had been locked up for a year already?the bleakest year of my life?and I had more time ahead of me.
At the time this picture was taken I weighed 125 pounds. When I look at my face in the photo I see nothing but the pocked mask I was hiding behind. I parted my hair down the middle and grew a mustache in order to look older and tougher, and with the greasy prison diet (salted chicken gizzards in a larded gravy, chicken wings with oily cheese sauce, deep-fried chicken necks), and the stress, and the troubled dreams of capture and release, there was no controlling the acne. I was overmatched.
I might have been slight?but I was smart and cagey. I managed to avoid a lot of trouble because I knew how to blend in and generally sift through the days unnoticed by men who spent the majority of their time looking to inflict pain on others. I called these men "skulls" and they were freaks for violence. Here we were, all of us living in constant, pissy misery, and instead of trying to feet more human, more free and unchained in their hearts by simply respecting one another and getting along, many of the men found cruel and menacing ways to make each day a walk through a tunnel of fear for others.
Fear of being a target of irrational violence haunted me day and night. The constant tempo of that violence pulsed throughout my body and made me feel small, and weak, and cowardly. But no matter how big you were, there was no preventing the brutality. I had seen the results of violence so often?with guys hauling off and smashing someone's face with their fists or with a metal tool, a baseball bat, a rock?and all for no other reason than some imagined offense or to establish a reputation for savagery. When I lived and worked in the prison hospital?especially after I had become the X-ray technician?I was part of an emergency medical response team. I was called on day and night to X-ray all types of ugly wounds to see if the bones behind the bruised or bleeding flesh had been cracked, chipped, or broken. As we examined them, the patients would be telling the guards, "I didn't even know the guy" or (my greatest fear) "I never heard 'em, never saw 'em."
It was this lottery of violence that haunted me. Your number could come up anywhere, anytime?in the dark of night while you slept in a dormitory with a hundred other men, or in full daylight on the exercise field while you strolled in the sun. Once, in the cafeteria line, standing directly next to a guard, I watched a skinny black kid stab some other "blood" with a dinner fork. He drove it into the guy's collarbone so deep the doctor had to remove it with a pair of surgical pliers. AIDS wasn't a factor then. The blood that sprayed over the food trays was wiped off by the line workers and they kept spooning up our chow.
I wasn't raised around this level of violence. I wasn't prepared for it, and I've never forgotten it. Even now, when walking some of Boston's meaner streets, I find myself moving like a knife, carving my way around people, cutting myself out of their picture and leaving nothing of myself behind but a hole.
Like most kids, I was aware that the world was filled with dangerous people, yet I wasn't certain I could always spot them coming. My dad, however, was a deadeye when it came to spotting the outlaw class. He had never been in prison, but he always seemed to know who had spent time in the "big house" or who was headed down that path.
In his own way he tried to warn me about going in their direction. When I was young, he would drive the family from Florida back to our hometown in western Pennsylvania to visit relatives. Once there, he'd troll the streets with me in our big Buick and point to guys he knew and tell me something wicked, or weird, or secret about them. "He killed a man with a pitchfork," Dad would say, nodding slyly toward some hulking farmer in bib overalls. "Look at his hands. He's a strong SOB?could strangle the life out of a cow."
Or Dad would point to a woman. "She had a kid when she was in ninth grade and sold it to a neighbor." He knew it all. "He burned down a barn. He shot a cop. He robbed a bank." Dad went on and on. I was always surprised at how many people from such a small town had been in prison. And I was really surprised that after committing such despicable acts they were back out on the street. They were a scary-looking lot, misshapen, studded with warts and moles, and I was glad we were in the car. But not for long. He'd take me to the Elks Club, or the Am-Vets hall, or Hecla Gun Club in order to get up close and personal with some of the criminal class. He'd order a beer and get me a Coke and some sort of food treat that came out of a gallon pickle jar of beet-red vinegar?a hardboiled egg, or a swatch of pig's skin, or a hunk of kielbasa. Everything smelled like a biology specimen, and with the first bite the red juice spurted out and ran down my chin. I must have looked like I'd split my lip in a bar brawl. Then, once we were settled, Dad would continue to point out the criminals, all the while using his Irish whisper, which could be heard in the next town over. He pointed out bank robbers, church robbers, car thieves, and a shadowy "second floor" man, known for snatching jewelry from the bedrooms of sleeping homeowners. I began to imagine the entire town was some sort of bizarre experimental prison camp without walls?a punishment center where criminals were sentenced to living only with other criminals.
Dad snapped his fingers. "These folks zigged when the rest of the world zagged. And once you cross that line, there's no coming back. Mark my words."
All this was my father's way of letting me know he was in the know?he had the dirt on everyone, and it was the dirt that made them interesting. At the same time he made it clear they were damaged goods and could never come clean again. Dad's keen eye for spotting criminals of all stripes was impressive. But it wasn't perfect. He never had me pegged for being one of them.
Ironically, in spite of all the fear and remorse and self-loathing, being locked up in prison is where I fully realized I had to change my life for the better, and in one significant way I did. It is where I went from thinking about becoming a writer, to writing. I began to write stories?secret stories about myself and the restless men around me. While among them, I may have feigned disinterest, but like my father I watched them closely and listened whenever they spoke. Then back in my cell I would sit on the edge of my bunk with my journal spread open across my knees and try to capture their stories with my own words. For some paranoid reason the warden would not allow us to keep journals. He probably didn't want the level of violence and sex among both prisoners and guards to be documented. My secret journal was an old hardback copy of The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, in which I spent hours writing in a tiny script between the tightly printed lines. I kept the book like a Gideons' Bible on top of my locker and, as far as I know, its true purpose was never discovered.
Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times. I certainly believe this to be true. I made a lot of mistakes, and went to jail, but I wasn't on the road to ruin like everybody said. While I was locked up, I pulled myself together and made some good decisions.
Like any book about mistakes and redemption (Oscar Wilde's De Profundis is my favorite), the mistakes are far more interesting to read about (and write about)?so I'll start with where I think I went around the bend.
Excerpted from hole in my life by Jack Gantos. Copyright © 2002 by Jack Gantos. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Product details
- Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR); First Edition (March 26, 2002)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 208 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0374399883
- ISBN-13 : 978-0374399887
- Reading age : 14 years and up
- Lexile measure : 840L
- Item Weight : 10.4 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.25 x 1 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,112,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
JACK GANTOS
Email: gantosbooks@gmail.com (for school visits)
Website: www.jackgantos.com
GANTOS SHORT BIO:
JACK GANTOS is the author of over fifty books for children from the ROTTEN RALPH picture books, collections of JACK HENRY short stories (5 in the series), upper elementary and middle school JOEY PIGZA novels (5 in the series), DEAD END IN NORVELT (Newbery Award) and FROM NORVELT TO NOWHERE, young adult novels--THE TROUBLE IN ME, LOVE CURSE OF THE RUMBAUGHS, DESIRE LINES, and an award winning memoir, HOLE IN MY LIFE, which is required reading in High Schools. His work can lead readers from the cradle to the grave.
Mr. Gantos was a professor at Emerson College where he developed the Masters Degree Program in Children's Literature, Writing and Publishing. He now spends his time writing and is an active speaker at book and literacy conferences, schools and libraries. His works have received a Newbery Award, Scott O'Dell Award, Newbery Honor, Printz Honor, Sibert Honor, National Book Award Finalist honor and he is the 2010 recipient of the NCTE/ALAN AWARD for his contribution to the field of Young Adult and Children's Literature. DEAD END IN NORVELT received both the 2012 John Newbery Award and the Scott O'Dell award for Historic Fiction. The companion novel, FROM NORVELT TO NOWHERE. His most recent releases are THE TROUBLE IN ME (middle/high school memoir) and WRITING RADAR: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories--the best selling book on how to become a great young writer.
GANTOS: LETTER TO YOUNG WRITERS
Dear Readers and Writers,
I am no different than any other writer in that the desire to write came to me after my desire to read. It is the reading that saturates the imagination with vast possibilities. Not just the possibility of creating a story, but with the possibility of holding a book in your hand that has your name printed on the cover.
In school I was a library helper. I shelved books and you can probably guess that the G section was my favorite. I would walk my fingers across the spines of the G authors until I came to my slot with GALDONE on one side and GEORGE on the other. I could imagine my book, with my last name fitting on the shelf between those two authors. Every school day I would pass that G shelf and imagine my book, with my name on it, proudly reaching out at me.
Of course, when you are young, it is easy to imagine a book with your name on it, but as I grew older I realized a bit of effort was going to go into the construction of a book. So I bought a small black writing journal and on the spine I took a pen knife and carved my last name into the black cover. I wasn't sure what to title the book and so I didn't. After a while
I just called it my "Black Book." I took that book everywhere. I wrote very unorganized stories in it. But I did have an eye for the odd moment. I saw my dog eaten by an alligator. I wrote about it in my Black Book. I saw an airplane crash in my neighborhood. I wrote it down. I broke my brothers arm--three times! I wrote it down. And I kept filling up the Black Book. And when it was full of odds and ends and bits and pieces of stories I made a fake library call number and pasted it on the spine of my book. I glued a card pocket on the inside back cover and slipped a Date Due card inside. Then I carved my title on the spine: JACKS BLACK BOOK. When no one was looking I went to the book shelf and slipped it between GALDONE and GEORGE. Each day I would pass it in the library. Weeks went by. It didn't move. Then one day it was gone!
I was thrilled.
But after many long weeks went by I thought maybe it was pretty foolish of me to put the only copy of my book on the shelf. Whoever checked it out was probably laughing at me. I was feeling pretty dejected. The empty gap on the shelf where my book had been now looked like a sad missing tooth.
Then it came back. I was working in the library and found it in the BOOK RETURN bin. I quickly flipped to the back where I had written a note on the last page asking the reader if he or she liked the book. They had responded. Eagerly I read: "Whoever wrote this book should seek mental help." I did. But it wasn't a doctor. I went to my teacher and told her what I had done and asked for help on how to organize my stories. She did help me. She, and reading more books, made me a better writer. Now I've published WRITING RADAR: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories. In this book I've put in my best 'how-to' writing tips for your writers who want to be published writers!
I went to college for creative writing. I have published forty-five books from the ROTTEN RALPH series to the JACK HENRY series to the JOEY PIGZA series to HOLE IN MY LIFE and more--all the way to DEAD END IN NORVELT, the 2012 Newbery Medal winner. I have won many awards, but the Newbery Medal tops them all. My next job as a writer is to top myself. Now, FROM NORVELT TO NOWHERE has just been released with Starred Reviews. In the fall of 2014 THE KEY THAT SWALLOWED JOEY PIGZA was published. It is the final Joey Pigza book. When you read it let me know what you think.
Now Out Is:
WRITING RADAR: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories.
All Best, Jack Gantos
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
His blunt sense of humor and vivid details make his stories entertaining and fun to read. He brings moments to life through his true stories and through the characters he has created.
In his memoir, Gantos shares a challenging part of his life that led him to actively pursue his writing passion. Jack Gantos introduces you to the people he encountered, the quests he went on, and the challenges he faced at the age of 20. He explains how he continuously searched for what he wanted throughout the years, how he got into trouble, and how the hole in his life ultimately changed is path. His story is open and honest, and it is fascinating to read about the crazy life he lived.
He finds himself filling many different roles: a junior attending school in Florida, a construction worker in Puerto Rico, a high school senior living in a motel, a boy involved in questionable activities, a sailor travelling to New York, a prisoner, and a writer. These different roles are a result of different major decisions he made, and these decisions helped lead an interesting and thrilling life. Gantos shows how each moment brought him exciting ideas and aided him in his passion. He shows that every moment truly counts, and that you should never give up on what you want to pursue.
The characters he introduces are well developed and authentic. Their voices and personalities can be heard and seen through the pages, and the interactions are vivid and real. From the major people in his life to people whose interactions were brief, each interaction played a vital part in his life, and Gantos’s storytelling makes it easy to imagine the friends and peers. The plot is interesting and easy to follow. His transitions between different thoughts and periods of time are seamless and enjoyable. At times it seemed as if the stories he was sharing were irrelevant, but each story created a better picture of who he is and what he was thinking while he was finding himself through all the chaos. The overall message of the story is relatable and inspiring. The story is captivating – it was hard to put the book down.
It is easy identify the books Gantos has written as his due to his distinct style, but his memoir is not like his children’s books. You can hear him speak through the pages and he has no filter while sharing the stories of his life. It is an easy read, but the contents of the book are heavy and mature. I would not recommend this book for children or young teens, because of the drugs and profanity within the story. I enjoyed the book and would eagerly read Gantos’ life story again.
In the book, Gantos seemed to be living the life of a normal teenager who gets into some bad habits, like drugs and alcohol. Though he never fully finished high school, Jack always knew he had a passion for writing and wanted to become a writer, he constantly kept journals for organizing his writing. He even wanted to go to college to improve his writing. Once he deemed the University of Florida as unfit for himself, he moves to St. Croix to be with his family again, who had moved to the island for work. Once he gets to St. Croix, he begins building wooden crates with his father but gets involved with drugs rather quickly. After being offered $10,000 to smuggle hashish from the island to New York, Gantos embarks on his three-week long sailboat adventure with an unfavorable partner. On his journey, Jack continues his writing and reading in hopes of being inspired and being able to perfect his writing skills. Things were quick to fall apart once he reached New York; the FBI ends up catching Gantos after a few weeks of being back in the United States and Jack is sent to prison. After being told he could serve up to six years, Gantos begins pouring his life into writing, writing about every detail of every day. Prison is where Gantos finally realizes his potential as a writer and embraces his passion for writing.
Overall, Hole in My Life is truly an inspiration to anyone who has dreams but finds themselves struggling to achieve them. The book does a great job of showing how Jack grew as a writer. He overcomes struggles and turns a very bad situation into a chance to follow his dreams. Jack Gantos is very successful in being detailed in his experiences, which allows the reader to relate to him and feel empathy. Because we know Gantos ends up in jail from the beginning of the book, Hole in My Life leaves you on the edge of your seat and leaves you wanting more. The book flows very well and does a good job of attaching the reader to the book. The hardships he faced gave him the chance to organize and write down his thoughts and allowed writing to become a substitute of drugs. Not only does Hole in My Life act as a story of Gantos’s young adult life, but shares multiple positive life lessons. If he had not gone through these difficulties, Gantos may not be the award-winning author he is today. I definitely recommend this book because it is a great read for anyone who is feeling lost or struggling to achieve their dreams.