The Potato Eater: The raw true story of Padric, a gay hustler from the Bronx who spent 1941-1965 in and out of 20 prisons

by Alison Leslie Gold

From an audio tape made in 1977 in New York "I was 16 when I was arrested for corrupting the morals of soldiers and sailors, blocking a public doorway, and disturbing the peace. In prison I began to grow up and learn. I learned how to pick pockets, how to open five kinds of safes, how to forge checks, how to work second story, how to boost. We’d practice there. I learned all the necessary things to spend 20 more years in different prisons. Riker’s Island was my Junior High School. Sing Sing and Dannemora State were my High Schools. The chain gang and Leavenworth were my colleges.Immediately I had ‘Homosexual, Degenerate, Cock Sucker’ stamped on my records so I was rarely in population with the rest of the men. I was kept in segregation with junkie queens, wino queens, booster queens, prick peddlers, drag queens and some men who just preferred to be in the homo block where they were adored and given sexual comfort. Life in segregation with those mad sissies was like being caged with a mass of mad, screaming peacocks."

178 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 4, 2015

About the author

Alison Leslie Gold is an American author. Her books include Anne Frank Remembered, Clairvoyant: the Imagined Life of Lucia Joyce, The Devil's Mistress, and Memories of Anne Frank. She has written literary fiction as well as books for young people on a wide range of subjects including alcoholic intervention and the Holocaust as experienced by the young. Her work has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Reviews

[Stephen Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely recommend a read of this book. It is witty and charming, and you can't help but be taken in by Padric and the life he leads.