My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun

by Theo Padnos

A moving memoir details his experiences teaching a class in literature to young prisoners incarcerated at the Woodstock Correctional Facility in Vermont, introducing violent young offenders to a new world for themselves and others through the power of the written word. 35,000 first printing.

Genres: Writing, Memoir

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very well-written if occasionally over-written account of a year spent teaching English literature to jailed Vermonters. It's not your typical prison story, mainly because this is not prison, it's jail: Theo's students (to whom he is always just "Theo") are often only with him for a matter of weeks before either moving on to somewhere more permanent or being released. This only makes a tough situation tougher, of course, and Theo does not always deal with it well. This is probably the strength of the book: Theo might be considered a very poor jail teacher, over-ambitious, starry-eyed, and too lenient with his charges, but he admits this. Although when I say that he "admits" it, I don't mean to say that he comes out and tells the reader, "I was a bad teacher." He simply tells the reader about his thoughts and dreams (sometimes literally -- there are at least two, maybe three or four, dream sequences in the book) and lets said reader make up their own mind. Most importantly, Theo does not undercut his faults with irony or self-deprecation, methods by which he might attempt to soften the impact of his failings and thus make himself appear to come off better.

All of this is not to say that Theo fails all the time. The students (whom he refers to as his "kids", which is fair given the number of teenagers in the jail, a fact Theo dwells on at some length late in the book) have some excellent insights, and there are moments of success with the class, if not out-and-out breakthroughs. It isn't a heart-warming tale by any means, but not is it a pure polemic against our criminal justice system. Instead, it is a very effective mix of memoir and social criticism, definitely recommended for people interested in criminal justice, the plight of the teenager, the decay of the industrial northeast, and/or education.

[Jean · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a PhD candidate (comparative literature, without a job, and feeling like an under achiever at age 33) finds employment teaching at a Vermont prison a fascinating and profound book emerges. The author deftly picks up on his students' stories - which are always interesting, and sometimes presented in many versions, as memory and allegations criss cross - and does not avoid the connections between the prisoners' misdeeds and his own real or imagined ones. There are also many good small essays on literature woven into the book. Maybe most importantly, there is a somewhat depressing overview of US prisons and the overwhelming challenges and problems of rehabilitation.

[Erik · Rating 3 out of 5]

strangely enjoyable book. I suppose that's due in part to the fact that it's set in VT but also because I enjoy reading about other people - in this case young adults who commit serious sometime violent crimes. But it's very hard to categorize this book.
I enjoyed it but not sure I can recommend it to others.
Written buy a Middlebury Grad, who grew up in MA & summered in VT (I think). Was recently captured in Iraq (or somewhere in the middle east) and recently (July 2014) released

[Jill · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book because I felt like I was sitting in a Literature lecture at some points but taking away only the interesting parts of the lecture. While teaching in a local jail, Padnos tries to understand the crimes his teenage students committed. It's an interesting story, but I definitely could skip over some parts and still understand what was going on without losing much of the message.

[Jessica]

Slow read, took me awhile. Interesting topic, but too much on the literature (I was more interested in the criminals.)