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My Return
My Return is sure to provoke intense public discussion and controversy. The author, Jack Henry Abbott, is now serving a fifteen-years-to-life sentence for the 1981 stabbing of Richard Adan, a young night manager of the Binibon Cafe on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
Only six weeks before killing Adan, Abbott had been paroled from Marion Federal Prison in Illinois at the age of thirty-seven. While in prison, he had become well known as a promising writer, encouraged in his work by Norman Mailer and other New York literati. Abbott's In the Belly of the Beast was released at the time of his parole and was widely heralded as a major literary achievement.
Except for a short-lived escape from prison in 1971, Abbott had been incarcerated in one institution or another since he was thirteen years old. His parole placed him in another potentially violent environment, but one that had a completely different set of rules. He has consistently maintained that he thought Richard Adan was carrying a knife and that his attack on Adan was the result of that perception.
Naomi Zack, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University, became interested in the Abbott case while doing research for a film on the victims of crime and of the criminal justice system. She is convinced that Abbott was unfairly convicted by an outraged public opinion inflamed by sensational treatment in the media.
My Return is Jack Abbott's and Naomi Zack's story of the death of Richard Adan, the ensuing trial, and Abbott's return to prison. It is comprised of "The Death of Tragedy," a play based on the actual court records; an illustrated appendix giving stage directions and the background of the issues and people involved; and "Men of Letters," a collection of Abbott's essays on a variety of topics - religious, philosophical, historical, and literary - including an autobiographical account of his tragic life. It is an absorbing and undeniably fascinating work.
Although it is his story, Jack Henry Abbott receives no royalties or any other remuneration from the publication of this book.
Only six weeks before killing Adan, Abbott had been paroled from Marion Federal Prison in Illinois at the age of thirty-seven. While in prison, he had become well known as a promising writer, encouraged in his work by Norman Mailer and other New York literati. Abbott's In the Belly of the Beast was released at the time of his parole and was widely heralded as a major literary achievement.
Except for a short-lived escape from prison in 1971, Abbott had been incarcerated in one institution or another since he was thirteen years old. His parole placed him in another potentially violent environment, but one that had a completely different set of rules. He has consistently maintained that he thought Richard Adan was carrying a knife and that his attack on Adan was the result of that perception.
Naomi Zack, who has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University, became interested in the Abbott case while doing research for a film on the victims of crime and of the criminal justice system. She is convinced that Abbott was unfairly convicted by an outraged public opinion inflamed by sensational treatment in the media.
My Return is Jack Abbott's and Naomi Zack's story of the death of Richard Adan, the ensuing trial, and Abbott's return to prison. It is comprised of "The Death of Tragedy," a play based on the actual court records; an illustrated appendix giving stage directions and the background of the issues and people involved; and "Men of Letters," a collection of Abbott's essays on a variety of topics - religious, philosophical, historical, and literary - including an autobiographical account of his tragic life. It is an absorbing and undeniably fascinating work.
Although it is his story, Jack Henry Abbott receives no royalties or any other remuneration from the publication of this book.
209 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 1987
75 people want to read
About the author
Jack Henry Abbott
5 books11 followersJack Henry Abbott was an American criminal and author. He was released from prison in 1981 after gaining praise for his writing and being lauded by a number of high-profile literary critics, including author Norman Mailer. Six weeks after his release, however, he fatally knifed a man during an altercation, was convicted of manslaughter and returned to prison, where he committed suicide in 2002.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 21, 2014
Crap. A waste of time. Typical convict, self-serving revisionist history bullshit from a piece of shit
habitual murderer. Norman Mailer must have been a real idiot to be so enamored of scumbags like this guy and Gary Gilmore.
habitual murderer. Norman Mailer must have been a real idiot to be so enamored of scumbags like this guy and Gary Gilmore.
September 28, 2023
A not very edifying sequel to In the Belly of the Beast. Most of the book is Abbott's play reconstructing trial for the killing that he committed six weeks after being released from prison in NYC. He goes into agonizing minutae over every detail of the prosecution's case and the event in question. The other part of the book is his letters to various people, including William Styron, Norman Mailer and Jerzy Kozinski. He rips apart Styron, which is amusing, the other letters are more of his rhetoric and political writings, which I tired of in the first book. The best part of My Return is the last entry, Epistle to Paul, in which he actually reveals some scant autobiographical information about his family, which I found really interesting. Abbott was unable to write about himself, which would have proved far more illuminating than his musings on Communism. A fascinating character who clearly was broken by his long prison experience. A wasted life.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews