A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden

by Stephen Reid

*Winner 2013 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize

Stephen Reid has grown old in prison and seen more than his share of its solitude, its vicious cycles, and its subculture relationships. He has participated in the economics of contraband, the incredible escapes, the intimacies of torture, the miscarriages of justice, and witnessed the innocent souls whose childhood destinies doomed them to prison life.

He has learned that everything is bearable, that the painful separation of family, children, and friend is tolerable, and that sorrow must be kept close, buried in a secret garden of the self, if one is to survive and give the ones who love you hope. Each of the essays in this collection is a recognition of how Reid’s imprisonment has shaped his life. Some describe his fractured boyhood and the escalation in crimes that led to his imprisonment, while others detail the seductive rush and notoriety of the criminal life.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Canada, Crime, Biography Memoir, Contemporary, Biography

135 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2012

About the author

Stephen Reid was a Canadian criminal and writer, who was a member of the notorious Stopwatch Gang and was also convicted twice of bank robbery. Reid served time in over 20 prisons in Canada and the United States.

Reviews

[JR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told from the experience in and out, but mostly in prison, Reid, a once bank robber from a famous gang tells tales of prison in Canada and the US.

Being incarcerated myself, I found Reid‘s guide to prison, somewhat familiar. With stories of loneliness, various people he met, and even the food (Those damn oranges!) being served.

Having served so much time, Reid seen it all, and while some of it is funny, the majority of the stories are just plain sad.

Overall, this book gives a candid inside look at prison life, death, and the people met on the inside. 4⭐️

[Kathrina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"For most of the men in our group, serving time kindles a singular construct; for them the world is the thing they stand on. But between these shelves, amongst living books, the shape of your world can shift a thousand times, once for each title, or be changed forever in a single page. In its own way, the prison library is more dangerous than the big yard" (p. 44).
Stephen Reid has lived a life stranger than fiction, so his memoir can't help but be interesting, but the real luxury here is his stunning use of language. He seamlessly meshes the jargon of hard time with fresh and artful metaphor, and he gives dignity both to his own experience and those around him without becoming precious or arrogant.
If I were to teach a course in prison literature, this would be at the top of my list. If I were to teach a course in memoir writing, this would also be at the top of my list.

[Emmkay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of autobiographical essays. Reid was a well-known figure in literary circles on the west coast, a former bank robber who married poet Susan Musgrave while in prison and went straight upon his release, until in 1999 he again landed in trouble when drug addiction led him to rob a bank. He wrote these essays when back in prison for a fresh 18 year sentence. He gilded the lily a bit in the writing - having mentioned his enjoyment of Raymond Chandler and his ilk, I can see that he liked to work in the tough guy-details maybe a little more than he should (including with some drug and prison slang that I would have liked a glossary for). But some of the writing is also very fine, and it provides insight into life in Canadian prisons, as well as into his own background. A short essay on a federal election in prison was interesting. Saddest was the essay "Junkie," which begins with Reid becoming addicted to morphine at age 11 at the hands of a physician who sexually abused him for many years before, at age 14, he ran away to the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. That would certainly mess you up. 3.5. (content note - some outdated homophobic and transphobic language)

[Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a powerful book that illuminates with heart and compassion both the dark side of the human spirit and the light. Reid describes with an immense dispassionate strength the human stuff we don't like to see let alone think about, think could be in us too. It is about the power of addiction to derail a life filled with love and beauty and family. It is about brutality done by the broken, and to the broken.

Following thirteen years of living a productive fully sober life with friends and family, Reid experiences at his birthday party an emptiness within that screams at him to escape from through drugs. He thinks it will be just a one time hit, and becomes a serious relapse culminating in owing his pusher a lot of money.

To pay that back he attempts to re-live his previous existence as one of the most successful bank robbers in North America, one half of the Stopwatch Gang. He attempts to rob a bank while stoned and without calmness or preparation. His botched effort lands him back in prison with an 18 year sentence. He writes:

Now, at fifty pieces, I find myself stripped bare, beaten back from hope, all out of illusions, in yet another prison cell. Having fallen through the crust of this earth so many times, it seems only on this small and familiar pad of concrete, where I can make seven steps in one direction, then take seven steps back, do my feet touch down with any certainty.
…

So I pace, seven steps one way and seven steps back. And I write. The days pass. I sit on my concrete pad, cross my legs and begin to breathe. The darkness of my world melts away, and as I move towards the mystery I can almost hear those faint golden bells [of my daughter’s laughter while tumbling down a snow covered hill]. Slowly I enter the heart of unknowing, without expectation, without heroin (p68).

He describes his life between prison sentences, while waiting for trial in jail, when he was a kind and loving husband and father, and active in the community through many avenues.

I had served on numerous boards of directors for organisations such as the John Howard Society, LINC BC, Prison Arts Foundation, PEN Canada, Spirit of the People, and Journal of Prisoners on Prisons. I lectured to crime students, taught creative writing in prisons, and conducted victim empowerment workshops (p29)

and more. He sums it all up with an ego's defiance, preceding the fall:

One particular (healing circle) session left a clear impression on my mind. It was not the sad tale of addiction and violation that was unfolding before me – these were all too common – but as I sat there, comfortable in my own chair, a witness to the human clumsiness the passed between this victim and this offender, I experienced a sense of liberation. I felt confident that I would be forever beyond the sad and humbling awkward ritual of accountability. I was so sure in that moment that I would never again be brought before the brass rail, made to stand, and be confronted by own own criminal failure.

And hey, look at me now, I can’t even meet the eyes of my lawyer, my friend (p30).

There are many places that the writing glows with a bright life beneath the darkness of prisons and destroyed lives.

A solid 5 stars.

[Randy Geer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all the prison books I have read and I have read plenty in my thirty years as a corrections professional, this is the best and most literate book of the bunch. Told from the point-of-view of the author, it is very powerfully written taking the reader along through the thrill and terror of crime and addiction and incarceration over a several decades long journey. The language is expansive yet poetic. Every chapter has the ring of truth. Wonderful book that brings dignity to the old term of convict and humanity to those lives that somehow become invisible to the rest of us.

[Venky · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Reid bemoans the dearth of ‘prison literature’. He also wonders whether it is because of the absence of writers and journalists being convicted with a more ‘acceptable’ regularity. For after all, only when a Dostoevsky is arraigned does one get to experience the joys of reading ‘Crime and Punishment’. If Alexander Solzhenitsyn was not banished to do the hard yards, the world would be much the poorer for Gulag literature. Reid, then proceeds to ‘right’ the anomaly by penning a prison classic himself. Convicted to eighteen years in prison after an attempted bank heist, and the consequent escape plan goes pear shaped, Reid mournfully reminisces a life spent stealing millions, sticking drug filled needles into reluctant veins with such regularity that his arms are a cartographical evidence of remorse and remonstration, sucking up (literally) to a pedophile who also happens to be his first preceptor on substance abuse (in addition to incredibly, being a doctor). More than anything else, “A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden” is a soulful elegy to a life which knows there is not going to be any redemption.

Reid was a serial bank robber, going by the moniker of ‘the stopwatch bank robber’. Reid always wore a stopwatch around his neck whilst robbing a bank. His heists were usually accomplished within a span of two minutes. Until it became one robbery too many. Reid’s tryst with calamity began when he was all of eleven years old. An older man, going by the name of Paul, and a doctor to boot, lures him into his car, injects him with morphine and sexually abuses him. Addicted to the ‘high’, Reid repeatedly keeps getting drawn to Paul. This addiction determines the next four decades of Reid’s life – chasing a drug induced high and getting acquainted with various prison cells across the United States and Canada.

Reid adopts a dualistic view of his life that is almost Cartesian in nature. He wishes he could bring a meat cleaver to a metaphysical butcher to carve out the violent and irrational person in him, thereby leaving to the world and his own doting family, a sane, loving, caring father, husband, and son. It is such musings that make this book a compelling read. Shackled within the confines of an ominous and foreboding prison that is buffeted by the sea, Reid, under the careful and unerring gaze of the prison guards wanders the coastline, collecting an assortment of detritus that are washed ashore. Such detritus, for him, represents a form of tranquil communication with a world that is emblematic of freedom. A world that could have been his for the taking, and one which can still be his to enjoy, if only he can bring about a certain degree of restraint and character.

Reid also manages to finish writing a book in prison and gets it published courtesy Susan Musgrave, an editor who ultimately ends up becoming his wife. Just when life seems to have taken a turn for the good, Reid gets lulled by the demon of addiction. Deep in debt, he sees no option other than the tried and tested one of emptying out a bank, to repay his dues to dangerous drug peddlers. The outcome: an extended bout in jail, yet again.

Juxtaposing humour with logic, Reid provides an inside out perspective on the Canadian Correction System, a series of management and psychological techniques instituted to reform hard nosed prisoners. Reid shares psychotherapy sessions with serial murderers and compulsive killers as the convicts sit around in a circle and answer questionnaires in addition to providing a detailed rendition of their heinous crimes.

In a Chapter titled, ‘The Zen of the Chain’, Reid provides valuable advice to the rustic and uninitiated prisoner on being constantly transferred to various penitentiaries. “A small white box will be tossed into your lap every day. This is lunch,“; “You will feel completely alone, because you are,” and thoughtfully, “Grow your fingernails.” The last piece of advice to peel oranges whose skins are as hard as nails.

Scavenging for items washed ashore, Reid spots a crowbar delicately hidden in the sand. A testimony to a failed escape attempt by two prisoners, this instrument poignantly reminds Reid, of his own life and loss. “Being behind bars for so much of my life, has taught me that everything is bearable, that sorrow must be kept close, buried in the secret garden.”

“A Crowbar in The Buddhist Garden” is a rumination over a past gone astray, and an attempt to reign in the future from going askew.

[Steven Buechler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The biblical story of the Garden of Eden still permeates in our society, whether we believe in the Bible or not. We subconsciously believe we live in Paradise and perhaps we do. We do have snakes and thistles and thorns and whatnots that could get us easily in trouble with whatever authority figure that watches over us and we could easily be expelled from the garden. Then what?
Stephen Reid's A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden is a dispatch from the 'Land of Nod.'

Prologue (The Beachcomber) Page 9/10
If you find a pink vibrator washed up on a beach you might laugh and walk on by. But when you find a pink vibrator washed up on a beach and you are in prison - you snatch and run.
William Head Institution, a.k.a. "Club Fed," is an eighty-acre windswept rocky peninsula that juts out from the southern tip of Vancouver Island into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is both a penitentiary and a place of terrible beauty. At night you can see the lights of Port Angeles, Washington, twenty miles to the south; Victoria, British Columbia, winks from five miles away to the northeast. A high steel fence topped with razor wire and backed up by two gun towers closes off the land entrance, and the cold black waves of the Pacific Northwest lap the perimeter shores like pack of hungry guard dogs.
*****
The detritus up on these rocks sometimes fuels our prison economy. There are men who sit with their faces to the wind, hunkered down out of sight of the patrol trucks, scanning the waves for a bobbing whiskey bottle with a few dregs left or a Ziploc baggy with a few buds of pot, still smokable.
*****
The pink vibrator, once it was rinsed, dried, a couple of new wires soldered in, and batteries installed, hummed to life as good as the day someone walked it out of a love boutique. This buzzing missile ignited a frenzied bidding war. The lucky beachcomber is rumoured to have got twelve bales of tobacco for it and then was able to return and back-tax the buyer for an extra four bales not to reveal his name to the rest of the population.

my complete review

[Magdelanye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen Reid is a professional criminal who has spent a disproportionate amount of time behind bars.
Still, he has managed to keep his mind alert and interested, and the reader quickly gets the impression that he is not a bad man at all; that the crowbar in the Buddhist garden is for opening the mind, dislodging old concepts rather than for breaking the windows.

This is writing from an experience, not about it. p71

[Sandy Plants · Rating 5 out of 5]

When he’s on, it’s pure gold. This is a compilation of essays and a lot of it I rolled my eyes at (Oh, wow, another old, white man telling the world what’s wrong with young people), but most of it was painfully pure. He writes with grace and eloquence about the most horrible things on this planet.

His writing about sexual abuse, drug-addiction, violence, robberies, crime, and prison are INCREDIBLE. I wish the whole book had been memoir... it would be a masterpiece!

[Wanda Pedersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The summary on the cover says:

"Stephen Reid has grown old in prison and seen more than his share of its solitude, its vicious cycles, and its subculture relationships. He has participated in the economics of contraband, the incredible escapes, the miscarriages of justice, and witnessed innocent souls doomed by their childhood destinies to prison life. He has learned that everything—the painful separation of family, children, and friends—is bearable, and that sorrow must be kept close, buried in a secret garden of the self, if one is to survive. Within his writing runs the motif that his prison life has never been far from his drug addictions, but the junkie who has some straight time and means to stay that way knows a lot about the way we really live, think, feel, hope, and desire in this country. A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden is a recognition of how Reid’s imprisonment has shaped his life."

Brutally beautiful.

The memoir of a career criminal, drug addict and prison inmate. Reid has such perspective on his situation—how he got there, how he got out and changed his life, and how things unravelled once again, pitching him back into the penal system. I heard on CBC radio that he has emerged once again, to try to resume a “normal” life, if there is such a thing.

My sister, during work on her psychology degree, attended a Narcotics Anonymous evening and left it amazed—amazed that anyone ever escapes from addiction, that anyone manages to change the destructive path that they are on. They generally have NO ONE who can give them loving support, who can offer a safe place to choose another life. Their family has tired of them long ago and the only friends they have left are the people who are invested in keeping them down and out. Reid certainly has one advantage over them—a wife and daughters, friends, who love him and want him out in the world with them.

Reid is one of nine children, with a largely absent father and an overworked, overwhelmed mother. When he was approached by a pedophile as a boy of 11, he had no defenses and was soon addicted to the morphine that was, as he puts it, a “prelude.” He remembers his first high: “The top is down on his Thunderbird, the pale autumn sun warm on my skin. The blood running down my arm is like spilled roses. We are hidden from the road, partway down an old tractor trail in the grass. I am pressed into the rich red leather. Not ten feet away, yellow waxy leaves make their death rattle in the late afternoon breeze. I am in profound awe of the ordinary—the pale sky, the blue spruce trees, the rusty barbed wire fence, those dying yellow leaves. I am high. I am eleven years old and in communion with this world. Wholly innocent, I enter the heart of the unknown.”

“Paul unzipped my childhood, but it’s never been as singular or as uncomplicated as blame. Mine is more than the story of a boy interrupted. It is not what Paul took from me, it is what I kept: the lie that the key to the gates of paradise was a filled syringe. In all the thousands of syringes I’ve emptied into my arm since then, the only gates that ever opened led to the penitentiary.”

Imagine having two sets of people that you know—those who are familiar with your straight life call you Stephen, those intimate with your past call you Stevie. One day, when already pensive, someone from the second group called his name: “Hey, Stevie!” In record time, he is high again and planning how to stay that way. Because he is an author, well known in his community, it is big news when he robs a bank, leads a dangerous police pursuit and hijacks an elderly couple as he tries to escape. Needless to say, his return to jail is a disappointment to his family and himself.

It’s obvious from this memoir that Reid is a well-read, thoughtful man with a good sense of humour. On a fifteen minute break: “I go to the library, not for a reading break, but just to be amongst books…The library here, fittingly, used to be the chapel….In the old days a prison library was more likely to resemble a second-hand bookstore after a crowd of shoplifters had passed through.” (p. 101-102) However, none of these qualities can protect him from his past. I was sad to realize what a struggle it was for him to stay straight, how easy it is to subvert decades’ worth of effort.

Mr. Reid, I cannot imagine the difficulties that you have faced, lived through, and documented in this poetically written book. Blessings on you.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

My feelings on A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden are honestly complicated, and I'm having a hard time sorting them out.

Reid manages to share, through a series of essays, an account of his life that is open and raw. He shares stories of the abuse he experienced, the addictions he struggled with, his criminal activities, his writing, his time in prison, and his sober years with his family. He is so open about his struggles that it's impossible not to feel for him, and for everyone else who has experienced the same. He makes some excellent arguments about prisoners' voting rights too.

That said, I had a couple of issues with it. One of those issues is entirely on me, but is worth noting: I definitely didn't get all the slang he used. Maybe it's because I've never been an addict or an inmate; maybe it's because Reid is decades older than myself and I am simply too young to appreciate his word choice. Regardless, I found myself having to look up a lot of slang, which made it harder to enjoy at times. Again, a me issue that wouldn't have been too big of an issue on its own.

My other issue is also about word choice, but more to do with the use of slurs. Racial, homophobic, and transphobic slurs are used in this book. There's no valid reason to include these as part of the book, and every instance could absolutely have used the correct terms and lost nothing from it. You can make any argument you want, but I solidly feel that the blatant exclusion of marginalised folks that happens when you use these slurs is not worth anything it could have "added," especially considering that Reid's views aren't bigoted outside of these word choices.

I think this book has value for anyone looking to understand prison, addiction, and more. But I would be hesitant to recommend it. I wouldn't recommend against it, but anyone interested in it should be aware of the following trigger warnings:

child sexual abuse, addiction, incarceration, hospitalization, racial slurs, homophobic slurs, transphobic slurs, violence

[J Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started reading this book after hearing it referenced in a radio interview which was about the recent book “the opposite of hate “. I missed the context on how it related to “ the opposite of hate” but it piqued my interest. Reading Stephen Reid’s reflections on life, choices we make and our own humanity really touched me. I would read in the morning along with poems by Leonard Cohen rather than read the screaming headlines or seeing who was being shamed today on FB. An introspective calm in the middle of life’s hyperventilation. Thank you.

[Kat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this little book! It changed my opinion on whether prisoners should be allowed to vote. I now think- yes! A couple of chapters/essays were less interesting but at least they were short. I love the part where he buries the crowbar and says "like some other things in life it could no longer be returned- It no longer fit". This is how he felt when trying to go back to a safe, normal family life after his drug and crime filled life. Great writer.

[Cari · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden was written by Stephen Reid from the confines of a maximum security prison while serving an 18 year sentence for armed robbery. I recently came across Reid’s name in the book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Dr. Gabor Mate and was intrigued by his tragic story and apparent talent with words.

A Crowbar in the Buddhist Garden is a collection of autobiographical essays with topics ranging from the childhood trauma Reid suffered at the hands of a pedophile, to the all-consuming cocaine and heroin addiction that led him to a life of crime and landed him at the top of two different countries’ Most Wanted lists, as well as the ‘ins and outs’ of living and dying in the prison system.

I’m really struggling to find the right words to describe what this reading experience was like:

Dark? Vulnerable? Intimate? Tragic?
All of these things and more.

Stephen Reid had a beautiful mind, but a tortured soul.

[Lester · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book grabbed my attention..right now!
My favourite quotes:
"A light breeze trembles the leaves, and their shadows on the sidewalk become like little fishes kissing."
I can see that!!

"The voice of the addict whispers, "Come this way, it will be different this time. Just this once, what you seek will be here." Ad, from the Latin "toward" or "yes" and dict from the Latin "say". Addicts just say yes."

"These voices come out of the dungeons and the labour camps and the penal colonies. This is writing from an experience, not about it."

Thankx to Stephen Reid for his writings...

[Ryan Millar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a spectacular piece of writing. Well, collection of writing. A rollercoaster of emotion, I found it almost painful at times, exhilarating at others, and everything in between. An unflinching look at a life, if not exactly well-lived, at least well-examined and held up for others to share. Highly recommended, espeically if you're a personal essayist who wants to see what mastery of the form looks like.

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written. His story is almost unbelievable. The first book written from prison that I have read. The knowledge of the setting for the writing infused the meaning for me as a reader. Somehow, it gave the content a gleam of authenticity - as though I thought- why would he be lying about any of it, or embellishing?
I cannot reccommend it enough, with the caveat that some of the content is hard.

[Cia · Rating 5 out of 5]

How Reid threads the needle between raw and honest, and beautifully crafted prose I am unsure. It's a gut-punch of a memoir, showing the bridge inside a man who knows his faults and yet cannot allow himself to dwell on them, lest he give up on trying to be a better man. Reid exposes his life with vignettes that tie together to give context for his life without excusing it. His introspection is so personal and so relatable. I truly would recommend this to anyone.

[Cathryn Wellner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few people are as self-aware, and able to write clearly about their lives, as Stephen Reid. In this collection of essays, Reid lays out the allure of his addictions, bank robberies, prison stays, and even family relationships. Reid was a brilliant writer. His path from a childhood of horrendous abuse to life as a career criminal is a familiar one, but his insight is extraordinary.

[Paula Dembeck · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a difficult story to read, one of a talented man trying to fight his drug addiction.

Stephen Reid had a tough childhood. When he was only eleven years old, a pedophile physician injected him with morphine so that he could sexually abuse him. So began Reid’s life with drugs, a life further doomed when he ran away from home as a young teenager. He led a life of petty crime to support his drug habit, getting further into addiction and the heftier crimes required to support it and spending time in prisons on both sides of the border when he was caught.

In his twenties Reid became a part of the Stopwatch Gang who successfully robbed more than one hundred banks. Their robberies were meticulously planned and never lasted more than ninety seconds. Over the years, they successfully stole over fifteen million dollars. After they were caught, Stephen was handed a twenty-one year jail sentence. Back once again in prison, he began writing and submitted his work to Susan Musgrave who was the writer in residence at the University of Waterloo. She nurtured his efforts and supported his talent while their personal relationship developed and evolved. Reid’s first novel “Jackrabbit Parole” was published in 1986, and Reid married Musgrave the same year.

Granted full parole in June 1987, Reid slowly began trying to put a life together with his new family. He became step father to Susan’s daughter Charlotte and together Stephen and Susan had another child, a girl named Sophie. He became a respected member of his community, a caring father, a good neighbour, a teacher of creative writing, a youth counsellor and an advocate for prison reform. It seemed like the ultimate success story. But despite being happy and settled, he was always haunted by a loneliness he could never put to rest, a sense he was “outside this world”. He had pushed his demons below the surface but not very far, with his old identity lurking just below the skin.

In 1999 he ran into an old friend from his former life and together they celebrated his birthday, dipping into the drugs he had loved in his past. It didn’t take long. Within three months he was ninety thousand dollars in debt and had to come up with the money for his suppliers. High on heroin and cocaine, he tried to rob a bank. During this heist he shot at a policeman, terrorized an elderly couple and put the lives of many civilians at risk in a wild car chase through the city of Victoria. He was charged with armed robbery and attempted murder and sentenced to 18 years in prison. And so his much celebrated rehabilitation was over.

His family was devastated by his fall from grace. His wife and daughters tried to pick up their lives and carry on, visiting him regularly in prison and trying to carry on a relationship through Plexiglass barriers. Charlotte was fifteen at the time and Sophie was only ten.

He was given day parole in 2008 but was sent back to prison in 2010 when he was caught at the border with a large load of illegal cigarettes. Back in prison he once more took up his pen and continued to write, tracing his life journey and trying to understand the choices he had made. The result is this volume which also includes a few short excursions from his personal story: one on the disappearance of pubic hair, one into the shortfalls of prison libraries and another on the voting rights of prisoners.

This book won the Victoria Butler Book award and Reid, granted day parole once again in February 2014 has done some publicity work to promote it. In an interview during one of those appearances he was asked what he would do with the $5,000 prize. He said he would use it towards his twenty-five year old daughter Sophie’s treatment--she is now an addict as well.

Drugs have disappeared from Stephen’s life, at least for now. He says he does not really understand it but he is glad they are gone. He continues to attend a drug abuse program and lives in a half-way house continuing his rehab program.

This is not a whining, “woe is me” memoir.
It is the brutally honest story of a talented writer who seems to love his family, but who could not keep the monster of addiction at bay. He places the responsibility for his actions squarely on his own shoulders and it is quite simply heart breaking as he struggles to understand the choices he has made in life. He sounds truly sorrowful for the hurt he has caused others, especially his wife and daughters who have stood by him. He was humbled by their regular visits, but grief was never able to serve him as a teacher and he says he has to do the best he can with all the hurt he has caused them. Redemption never comes free, there is always a cost to be paid, no matter how deep your remorse.

Reid is an excellent writer and you cannot be unmoved by this narrative about his life. He has let go of his childhood abuse but still lives with the guilt and shame of those experiences. Given his past, there is a numbing sense of hopefulness as the book closes. Is Reid fated to continually fall back on his old ways? The drugs are now gone but he continues to be haunted by its shadow. It simply never seems to go away.

An excellent read.

[Priyanka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing read! Wonderful literature with emotions. Very few authors have the ability to touch the heart of the reader. The last chapter numbed me for few minutes.

[Tracy]

Terribly autobiographical tortured account of a life deranged and redeemed.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book. I would recommend this to anyone.

[Laura Brew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poignant series of stories with the most incredible writing I have read in a long time. Stayed with me for a long while after I put it down.

[Li Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and powerful story of a man's life. Honestly himself, honestly human. Makes me question how one can overcome abuse, addiction, estrangement from family and shame.

[Maddox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastically written, intriguing and of the times

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal.

[Robyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting perspective to read. It was honest and pretty blunt at times but quite personable. He talked about family, addictions, shed light on his past trauma, talked a little about his fellow bank robber, and about what life felt like for him behind bars.

[Zoom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a compelling little book of bittersweet essays written behind bars by Stephen Reid, one of Canada's best-known and talented prisoners. In it, he lifts the curtain and provides insight into the circumstances that led him to a life marked by ongoing cycles of addiction, crime, recovery and rebuilding. Stephen Reid has torn down and rebuilt his life more than once. He never seems to do anything halfway - he's an overachiever in all that he does, even the illegal stuff. This book is a reflective, philosophical and poignant examination of, among other things, what it means to lose everything - again - and be growing old in prison.

From Junkie, which is my favourite essay in the book:
"I have quit heroin to become a better thief. I have quit heroin to become a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better citizen. I have maintained these clean and good intentions for years at a stretch, but I have never stayed quit."

I hope he gets another chance to be free, to be with his family, and to rebuild his life one more time.

[Chantale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reid tells his story of addiction since the age of 11 and of his years of crime and incarceration in both Canadian and American prisons. He was convicted twice of bank robbery and this book is about serving his second 18 year term and looking at how he got there. He is honest when he speaks about the pain he has caused those he loves and of the ongoing support he receives from his family and friends. Reid shares absorbing insights into a life of crime unfamiliar to many and also relates many experiences, hopes, fears, and ruminations which strike a chord with our own lives.