Education of a Felon

by Edward Bunker

In Education of a Felon, the reigning champion of prison novelists finally tells his own story. The son of an alcoholic stagehand father and a Busby Berkeley chorus girl, Bunker was--at seventeen--the youngest inmate ever in San Quentin. His hard-won experiences on L.A.'s meanest streets and in and out of prison gave him the material to write some of the grittiest and most affecting novels of our time.
From smoking a joint in the gas chamber to leaving fingerprints on a knife connected to a serial kiler, from Hollywood's steamy undersde to swimming in the Neptune pool at San Simeon, Bunker delivers a memoir as colorful as any of his novels and as compelling as the life he's lead.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, Crime, True Crime, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography Memoir

320 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 1999

About the author

Edward Heward Bunker was an American author of crime fiction, a screenwriter, and an actor.
He wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films.
Bunker was a bright but troublesome child, who spent much of his childhood in different foster homes and institutions.
He started on a criminal career at a very early age, and continued on this path throughout the years, returning to prison again and again.
He was convicted of bank robbery, drug dealing, extortion, armed robbery, and forgery.
A repeating pattern of convictions, paroles, releases and escapes, further crimes and new convictions continued until he was released yet again from prison in 1975, at which point he finally left his criminal days permanently behind and became a writer.
Bunker stayed out of jail thereafter, and instead focused on his career as a writer and actor.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

The sergeant held up the three driver's licenses in three different names from three different states. "What's your name?"

"I'm John McCone, CIA. I tried to warn them-"

"Warn them?"

"In '36, I told them the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor."

"What the fuck have you been taking?"

"Will you get me to Washington?"

When they booked me, I signed as Marty Cagle, Lt., USNR, and gave my birth year as 1905...

...In the morning, a uniformed officer unlocked my cell gate. A detective waited to interrogate me in the standard windowless room with a table and three hard-backed chairs. He looked at me with cold, hostile eyes. "Sit down, Bunker."

They knew my name already. Damn! They had pulled out all the stops, or so I thought for a moment. "He's dead", I said. "I am number five. Who are you?"

Prison is a foreign country- foreign to me, at least. It has its own culture, traditions, rules of survival and language. When traveling abroad, most of us try to do as the Romans do, to a degree, with the understanding that you can never actually be a Roman, nor would most of us particularly wish to be. In a foreign country, you can recognize others from your own country, often before they open their mouths; conversation and affinity come easily, easier than they might have back home, if for no other reason than that it's pleasurable to talk for a while in your native tongue. It's not quite true that Edward Bunker was born in prison- he was born in Hollywood in fact, on New Year's Eve in 1933- but it became, essentially, his native country. His father was an alcoholic stagehand, as the synopsis on the back of this book tells us, and his mother was a dancer. Surely Bunker's father was not a perfect man- in addition to drinking too much, he shared the common prejudices of his time ("Dad disliked 'niggers', 'spics', 'wops', and the English with 'their goddamn king'") but Bunker paints a few vivid scenes that show there's more to a life than a pithy phrase on the back of a book:

"...Sometimes I think about starting the car with the garage door closed."

I knew what that meant [even at nine], and from somewhere within me came a Catholic canon. "If you do that, you'll go to hell, won't you, pop?"

"No, I won't. There's no hell...and no heaven, either. Life is here. Reward is here. Pain is here. I don't know very much...but that much I know for sure."

When his parents got divorced a few years after he was born, they sent five-year-old Ed to a boarding school, from which he promptly ran away. Running away from boarding school led to military school, running away from military school led to juvenile hall, and Bunker eventually became the youngest inmate to ever be imprisoned at San Quentin, at the age of 17. When a typically law-abiding American male imagines what it would be like to go to prison, one fear in particular rises above all the others- and indeed, as soon as Ed arrives in County Jail as a teenager, an older inmate slips him a note that implies that he's going to rape him in the shower. "I half-hoped that my cell partners would help me, even though I knew it unlikely. They had just met me and had their own very serious troubles. Their sympathy ended with sympathy, not intervention." Ed decides to strike first- he brings a razorblade to the shower with him and sends the guy to the hospital. Is this why, later on in San Quentin, it seems as though no one ever really bothers him? That's not totally clear, but with the caveat that Bunker seems to have established a reputation of being able to handle himself and of being a little unpredictable, I was surprised that life in San Quentin in the 50s just doesn't really sound, well, all that bad. Bunker is allowed to spend most of the day outside his cell, the library lets him take out five books at a time, there were (voluntary) boxing tournaments and use of a gym, and the racial animus of the 60s was still latent. It's also in San Quentin that Bunker reads the first chapter of fellow convict Caryl Chessman's Cell 2455, Death Row, published in a literary journal, and gets the idea that even a convict can be a writer- that maybe he has access to a corner of human experience that most people, even those with more talent or intelligence, don't.

I had knowledge about life that many people never learn and never have need to learn. But I knew I had gaping flaws, too, emotions and impulses without the internal controls that we learn from parents and society...if anything is true in a young criminal's mind, it is the need for immediate satisfaction. Truly the place is here and the time is now. Delayed gratification is contrary to his nature.

Paroled at the age of 22, Bunker finds work through a lawyer with Louise Fazenda, a silent-film actress who takes him to meet Aldous Huxley, Ayn Rand, and to the Hearst Castle (which seems to have been one of those impenetrable fantasy worlds- like Neverland, Mar-a-Lago, or O.J. Simpson's Rockingham- that rich psychopaths tend to make for themselves), where Bunker swims in the Neptune pool on the night of Hearst's death. But like anyone living in a foreign country, Bunker comes to realize that the quotidian details of life are more complicated for him than for the natives. Finding legitimate work proves difficult, at least once employers get wind of his history, but it's more than that: when he recognizes others from his own country, the people he feels most comfortable with, they still tend to be safecrackers, burglars, confidence men, pimps, prostitutes, dealers and addicts. "Thinking back", he writes, "I cannot recall a moment when I decided to return to crime as a way of life. I was simply trying to get by and live well in the world that I found." Still, he's too honest of a writer to claim that it was all about necessity. After a (kind of insane) scheme to trick Hollywood pimps into paying him protection money falls through, he finds himself chased through an underground parking garage by the pimps' Mob-connected Vegas muscle:

Of course I was frightened at the moment. Brass knuckles are terrible weapons. They easily crush facial bones. But once I was out the window and down the street, the fright gave way to a weird excitement. It wasn't anger. It was an exhilaration. This was my best game. It was a level of excitement that my metabolism thrived on. My whole life had conditioned me to such situations.

As Bunker puts it, "[Prison's] values would become my values, namely that might makes right." One of my favorite chapters in the book made this particularly clear to me. Immediately following his transfer to a low-security institution while faking insanity, Bunker hops the institution's fence and becomes a fugitive. He takes Route 66 east through Arizona and New Mexico, stays in Oklahoma City for a few weeks with an LA musician, freezes in his unheated car while driving across the Great Plains in February, and ends up circling around places like Joplin, MO, Paducha, KY, South Bend, IN (even the mildly attentive reader will no doubt wonder if Bunker could possibly be Mayor Pete's biological father, but unfortunately the dates don't work), and Toledo, OH. After taunting his parole officer with a postcard from Paducha ("Glad you're not here. Ha ha ha..."), a hotel clerk in Joplin steals money from his room, just about all of his money in fact, and he can't go to the police for obvious reasons. Not having had Bunker's life experience, my reaction in such a situation would probably be to call a few close friends, hoping one of them could help. What Bunker decides to do, on the other hand, never would've occurred to me- not necessarily because I'm morally opposed, but because I'm habituated to generally obeying the law- a question of metabolism, you might say. He downs three shots of Wild Turkey to 'fortify' himself, then walks into the nearest bank, shows the pistol in his belt to the teller, and walks out with $7,000. "This robbery slipped into the annals of unsolved crimes", he notes, probably with some satisfaction, "and the statute of limitations expired decades ago."

Wherever I was, Joplin, Chicago, Rome...or Timbuktu, I could always get some money if I had a pistol. I didn't even need to speak the language. The pistol muzzle was in universal language: Gimme da money!

Perhaps the best chapter in the book, which almost reads like a novella in itself, is the last one. By the time Bunker ends up back in San Quentin in the 60s, things inside have started to change dramatically:

From the early forties through the fifties, San Quentin went from being one of America's most notoriously brutal prisons to being a leader in progressive penology and rehabilitation. Like other prisons, it was not ready for what happened when the revolution came to America. As drugs flooded the cities, likewise they flooded San Quentin. The racial turmoil of the streets was magnified in San Quentin's sardine can world...in 1963 when John Kennedy was assassinated, it was lunchtime in the Big Yard. Everyone fell into a stunned silence. Eyes that hadn't cried since early childhood filled with tears, including those of the toughest black convicts. Five years later, when Bobby Kennedy was shot in the head, the response was different. Black convicts called out, "Right on!"...

...For several years before the guards became combatants there had been a race war limited to Black Muslims and the self-proclaimed American Nazis. The Nazis had one copy of Mein Kampf that they passed around as if it were a Holy Bible. No one could really understand it. How could they? It borders on gibberish. Except for one or two, these erstwhile Nazis were skinny, pimple-faced kids who were afraid that someone would fuck them, but that fear didn't mean that several together would hesitate in stabbing someone.

This was the beginning of the Aryan Brotherhood, and Bunker describes the escalating race war in harrowing detail (an article he wrote about it would eventually be published in Harper's, in part leading to his parole):

Most convicts lacked a sanctuary where they could relax. Even the cell offered no safety. An empty jar could be filled with gas and smashed against the bars, followed by a book of flaming matches. It happened more than once. Going to eat...required passing blind spots on the stair landings where an ambush could be laid. A group of whites or blacks could be waiting for someone of the opposite color, or maybe they were simply waiting for another friend- but someone of the opposite color wouldn't know why they were there and had to virtually brush against them while going by. A white was jumped that way, but he managed to get away. Ten minutes later in another cell house, a white lunged at a black but exposed his knife before he was in range. The black saw it and bolted down the tier.

Throughout the book, Bunker is a thoughtful and entertaining companion. There are interesting characters from every walk of life and some truly wild anecdotes. You can't help being on his side- I couldn't, anyway- and it helps of course that he is not a man completely without recognizable morals (he is not a murderer for example, nor a rapist, nor a pedophile). There's a nice little epilogue here in which he describes being stopped on a street in Paris by a fan who's read all of his novels and who recognizes him from his minor role as Mr. Blue in Reservoir Dogs, and this late-in-life success seems deserved. Yet one of the broader ideas I take away from the book is that the distinction between a civilized, law-abiding life and a criminal life may often come down to habits and values that, by the time we're old enough to judge them, are already ingrained- and that holds true even when the person in question isn't someone like Bunker, someone self-aware and erudite enough to (eventually) evaluate his own circumstances and how they shaped him. Here in the US, where we have the highest prison population rate of any country in the world, it seems fair to say that a good percentage of people, and especially people of color, are born every year into that other country, the one that Bunker describes so well. Such a thought can make it a bit difficult to maintain the whole concept of personal responsibility that's so sacrosanct here, as the determining factor in the course of a life.

Having read a few other southern California writers recently, I found myself comparing Bunker and Bukowski. True, their sensibilities and temperaments were different; Bunker was a genuine criminal in a way that Bukowski wasn't; Bunker describes a broader range of experience and emotion than Bukowski, in my view; nor were they really the same age- Bukowski was born in '20, so he was about 13 years older than Bunker. Furthermore, I suppose it's nothing more than coincidence that Mickey Rourke acted in both the Bukowski-written Barfly and in The Animal Factory, adapted from one of Bunker's novels. On the other hand, both grew up subjected to physical violence (Bunker in various state institutions, Bukowski- if Ham on Rye is true, at least- with his father) and were therefore unable to form their perspectives on life without accounting for it; both wrote autobiographical works about men at the fringes of society; both lived in a sense isolated from the world and the broader narrative of history (prison and addiction strike me as similar in this way); and both worked at their writing for decades without any success or recognition, only achieving a little bit later in life (Bunker's final tally was six unpublished novels, excluding drafts that were occasionally lost while on the run from law enforcement). Maybe it's telling that a modicum of success came Bunker's way only well after he'd given up on the idea of conventional success...but simply kept writing anyway, without any expectation of reward, just like Bukowski did.

[Olethros · Rating 3 out of 5]

-Algunas caras de un poliedro personal de alta complejidad.-

Género. Biografía.

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro La educación de un ladrón (publicación original: Education of a Felon. A Memoir, 2000) ofrece las memorias del autor, plagadas de experiencias, situaciones y eventos que marcaron a la persona que terminaría siendo, un hombre que vivió en la delincuencia y pasó mucho tiempo desde muy joven en instituciones correccionales, primero, y penitenciarias, después.

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...

[Jennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far, so good. I love these obscure biographies. I'd rather read about this guy than, say, Bill friggin' Clinton...

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This autobiography of Edward Bunker starts as a wild romp through the L.A. criminal underworld of the 1940s and '50s before morphing into an unsparing look at prison life in the '60s and '70s when Bunker ends up doing hard time. If you're interested in seeing the world through the eyes of a sociopathic but charismatic thief and dope fiend (and who wouldn't be?), this is the book for you. I don't know if I believe all of the tales Bunker tells here, but it sure was fun hearing them. This is almost as good as jazz saxophonist Art Pepper's memoir/bio Straight Time, which takes place in the same milieu at roughly the same period of time and is also a must-read. (Fun fact: Pepper is mentioned in Bunker's book.) Bunker had a third act as a successful novelist, screenwriter and actor, beating the odds for a guy with his upbringing, addictions, and psychology. He willed himself into (and worked hard at) being a writer, which should inspire anyone with similar desires and less adversity (much of Bunker's certainly self-inflicted) to overcome.

[Steven Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe that anyone who doesn't read remains dumb. Even if they know how, failing to regularly ingest the written word dooms them to ignorance, no matter what else they have or do.

Edward Bunker

[Wu Ming · Rating 5 out of 5]

WM3: Leggere Bunker significa soprattutto fare i conti con se stessi. C'è il rischio di uscirne con le ossa rotte, ma è una esperienza che solo la grande letteratura riserva. Edward Bunker scrive con l'acciaio e il cemento armato: il materiale di cui sono fatte le prigioni di massima sicurezza di San Quentin, Lexington, Folsom. Lo stesso materiale di cui è fatta la sua determinazione, assoluta e glaciale.
"Educazione di una canaglia" è la più lucida osservazione dell'universo concentrazionario contemporaneo che abbia mai letto, eppure non mi sembra questa la cosa importante, quanto lo scavo nelle motivazioni ancestrali, nelle radici profonde da cui origina la capacità di reagire, l'istinto di sopravvivenza che diventa acciaio appunto, e disciplina assoluta, e imperscrutabile capacità di adattamento.
Il narratore Bunker presta la penna al detenuto per un'opera di rara chiarezza disciplinare, dentro e fuori dal corpo. Ma emerge in squarci e sprazzi di puro godimento narrativo, - le interminabili partite di poker a perdere in carcere... -, e nella succulenta anticipazione del suo prossimo romanzo, che ha al centro le vicende di George Jackson e di Fay Stender, famosa avvocato che lo difese prima del precipitare degli eventi. Continuerete a sentire il rumore del metallo, e cancelli che si chiudono, anche dopo averlo finito. Non spaventatevi, Bunker vi segnala l'uscita.

[WM1:] Illuminante l'analisi della dialettica perversa tra spinta all'integrazione razziale (nella società americana) e ricaduta nella segregazione pura (in galera). Imperdibili i numerosi aneddoti sulle sottoculture delinquenziali nella California di metà secolo.
Ogni volta che pensate di avere dei problemi dovreste mettere mano a quest'autobiografia, leggere un capitolo a caso, poi insultarvi allo specchio dandovi del/la fighetto/a. Terapia miracolosa. Se Bunker è uscito da dove s'era/l'avevano ficcato, allora chiunque può uscire da qualunque situazione.
A una lettura superficiale puo' sembrare che "Mr.Blue" se la sia cavata facendosi i cazzi propri, il che rischierebbe di immettere questo "romanzo di de-formazione" nel solco già scavato dal neoliberismo, quello dell'individualismo smodato e monodimensionale... In realtà Bunker ce l'ha fatta grazie all'attenta osservazione e alla profonda comprensione della comunità che lo circondava, la comunità di chi sta "a bottega", coi suoi codici, la sua particolare interpretazione della lealtà, del mutuo appoggio etc. Mi dicono che in galera nessuno, ma proprio nessuno, possa davvero sopravvivere da solo. Esattamente come succede fuori, ma più evidente. Leggete, insultatevi allo specchio, uscite di casa e date il vostro contributo alla lotta che infuria.
http://www.wumingfoundation.com/italiano/Giap/nandropau…

[B.J. Swann · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great biography by one of the greats, with the same crisp prose and exquisite brevity of his fictional works.

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to read the late Eddie Bunker's memoir after having it on my TBR list for years, it seems. For a Hollywood dude with an IQ of 152, he did lots of dumb things in his wanton youth. When he wasn't serving a prison sentence, he stayed busy robbing and conning folks. Sometimes he was a fugitive from the law. He had a knack for writing and sold his first crime novel to Norton while he was doing time at San Quentin. His autobiography is a chronicle of his crimes told with humor and grit. He said he never killed a man and hated pimps. He was a professional thief. I liked the sections when he was not behind bars more than his jailhouse days. Incarceration is boring and tedious--which is the whole idea, really. Mr. Bunker has a tendency to ramble but has interesting things to say. Fans of James Ellroy should get a kick out it.

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Publicado en http://lecturaylocura.com/la-educacio...

Ha comentado hace poco el editor de la colección “Al margen” de Sajalín Editores que el libro con el que se iniciaba la colección, fue precisamente, el primero de Edward Bunker publicado en España: No hay bestia tan feroz. De hecho, esta colección surgió por su necesidad de publicar este tipo de libro que no entraba en la temática de la colección en ese momento. Desde la publicación de ese primer libro (2012) han pasado tres años y se cierra un círculo con la reedición (la primera edición la sacó Alba en el año 2003, sin demasiado éxito) de su autobiografía La educación de un ladrón, un espléndido colofón que sirve como cierre a la publicación de todo lo que hay disponible del inolvidable Mr Blue.
Bunker ya ha visitado alguna vez este blog, lo hizo gracias a Little boy blue , donde argumentaba el uso de la violencia y su función catártica así como con el último libro de relatos (póstumo) Huida del corredor de la muerte , donde precisamente comenté lo bien que estaría que consiguieran los derechos de su autobiografía. Parece que me han hecho caso, y la espera ha valido muchísimo la pena, posiblemente estamos ante el mejor libro del autor dentro de un muestrario de títulos (todo sea dicho) de mucha calidad.
Si hay una cosa que destaca en esta lectura en primera persona de su propia vida es su capacidad para reflejar situaciones, una verosimilitud que surge de su propia experiencia pero que no ahoga el sentido literario de lo que nos expone, un sentido que nunca olvidó, menos al final de su carrera, en esta obra de total madurez:
“Yo escuchaba y lo grababa todo en la cabeza pero, sin decirlo abiertamente, no sentía inclinación por los robos a mano armada. En realidad, no había planeado ser un delincuente aunque tampoco había jurado a Dios ni a nadie no serlo. Cuando saliera a la calle, no tendría un céntimo. Los únicos amigos que tenía los había hecho en un encierro u otro: las escuelas especiales, el reformatorio o la cárcel… Ocurriera lo que ocurriese, yo saldría adelante. Los reclusos de una pieza decían: “A mí empiezan a gustarme las cosas cuando se ponen difíciles para todos los demás.” Es una expresión que he utilizado con frecuencia en la vida.”
Solo hay que echar un vistazo a la forma en que define las trampas que se suelen hacer en los juegos de cartas para constar que todo lo que cuenta es de primera mano, ha sucedido y eso nos provoca un estado de intranquilidad:
“Cuando los otros jugadores eran tan buenos que las trampas me habrían ayudado, también ellos conocían las triquiñuelas. No se detecta nada ilegal, pero la manera de poner la mano o de sujetar la baraja siempre son un indicio. Lo principal era identificar a un tahúr. Si lo había, le hacía una señal que conocen todos los timadores del mundo, un puño cerrado sobre el tapete. Significa que tiene que jugar sin trampas. Una mano plana indica que siga con lo suyo. También hay señas habituales para los timadores, los mecheros, los rateros de pisos y todos los demás miembros de esa raza de ladrones profesionales en peligro de extinción que se remonta, como poco, a la Inglaterra isabelina.”
Sobre todo porque no hay ningún tipo de juicio moral por su parte, no existe ningún tipo de coacción a lo que podamos pensar, él no intenta justificarse de ninguna manera ni evalúa si sus actos son correctos, incluso a veces indica que pueden serlo pero poco importa en una carrera de supervivencia donde solo el más listo sobrevivirá:
“Era una locura emprenderla con el mundo aunque fuese este el que hubiera comenzado la pelea. En la jerga de los psiquiatras, yo tenía un ego permeado de ello y un superego -que es como la conciencia, o como el conductor que controla que el coche no se pase de velocidad- atrofiado. Los estudios especializados decían que no había tratamiento, aunque era frecuente que hacia los cuarenta años se alcanzara un apaciguamiento. Confiaba en poder recurrir a la inteligencia para gobernar mis impulsos. Sabía que algunos sociópatas triunfaban y que la gente lista no cometía delitos callejeros. Nadie se compra una casa en Beverly Hills a base de reventar cajas de seguridad. Prometí que cuando saliera de los muros de San Quintín sería lo más listo que pudiera. Me empaparía de todo el conocimiento al que tuviese acceso.”
En este sentido, es especialmente potente todo el capítulo (extenso) que dedica a los conflictos raciales con esa facilidad para retratar la violencia realista de los sucesos enmarcados en una prosa de gran lirismo; esos contrastes de los que ya he hablado alguna vez con respecto al autor norteamericano.
En el relato de estos hechos autobiográficos son fácilmente discernibles dos líneas argumentales, por un lado el ya citado reflejo de su propia vida y los eventos históricos que le tocó sufrir: el paso por correccionales, San Quintín, timos, atracos, etc; por el otro, su progresivo balanceo hacia lo literario, una especie de relato de formación en el arte en el cuál actuó de una manera autodidacta:
“No asistí a ningún curso de creación literaria, ni tenía mentores. El único escritor que había conocido en mi vida, aparte de Chessman, era un periodista alcohólico con el que había coincidido en el hospital estatal de Camarillo, y que estaba escribiendo un libro en la lavandería donde trabajaba. Para hacerme cierta idea de lo que estaba haciendo, me suscribí a Writer’s Digest, una revista literaria. Quizás aprendería algo de sus numerosos artículos sobre “cómo redactar….” Adquirí varios de los libros que anunciaba. El más útil era de un tal Jack Woodruff (creo que ese era el nombre), que aconsejaba imaginar la escena mentalmente y limitarse a describir lo que uno veía.”
Lo bueno del autor es que consigue fusionar ambas líneas argumentales formando un todo muy homogéneo en el que destaca especialmente una virtud que le sirvió para avanzar:
“A pesar de que tuve momentos de esperanza insensata, sabía muy bien que nunca sería publicado. Lo había escrito para aprender el oficio. Aún conservo el manuscrito. Mi mujer dice que, si lo hubiera leído ella, me habría aconsejado abandonar. Pero es bien sabido que la ignorancia es muy osada, de modo que empecé mi segunda novela. Nunca imaginé que tardaría diecisiete años y seis novelas antes de ver publicada una, la séptima. Perseveré porque me daba cuenta de que escribir era mi única manera de hacer algo creativo, de salir del pozo oscuro, de cumplir el sueño y descansar al sol. Y si el lector ha llegado hasta aquí, se habrá dado cuenta ya de que la perseverancia es fundamental en mi modo de ser. Me recupero de cualquier caída mientras el cuerpo obedezca mi voluntad. He ganado muchas peleas porque no me he rendido… y también he recibido algunas palizas por no saber dejarlo a tiempo. “
Entender su forma de escribir es parte de su éxito y su calidad, primeramente, su experiencia vital, que compara con la de Cervantes y Dostoievski en la confrontación de los hechos más descarnados que se puede encontrar el hombre, es en experiencias de este calibre cuando se obtiene la materia prima para escribir:
“Leer me había enseñado que la cárcel había sido el crisol donde se habían formado varios grandes escritores. Cervantes escribió buena parte del Quijote en una celda, y Dostoievski era un autor mediocre hasta que lo condenaron a muerte, pena conmutada a escasas horas de la ejecución, y lo enviaron a prisión en Siberia. Fue después de estas experiencias cuando se convirtió en un gran escritor. Hay dos mundos en los que los hombres se despojan de todas sus máscaras y dejan ver lo más descarnado de su ser. Uno es el campo de batalla; el otro, la cárcel. Sin la menor duda, tenía mucha materia prima; el interrogante era mi talento.”
Lo segundo fue su decisión de escribir desde el punto de vista del criminal y la verosimilitud con que es capaz de realizarlo, relatos duros, descarnados, sin aliento para el lector que se encuentra con una realidad que no solo no ha vivido, sino que no puede entender:
“Se han escrito muchos libros sobre criminales, pero el escritor siempre los observa, a ellos y a su entorno, desde el punto de vista de la sociedad. Yo deseaba que el lector viera el mundo desde la perspectiva del criminal: qué veía, qué pensaba, qué sentía… y por qué. También quería escribir en tres planos: primero, la tensión de la trama; segundo, la composición psicológica; y tercero, el planteamiento de una visión filosófica. Y también intentaba seguir la máxima de Hemingway de que el escritor debe ser tan devoto de la verdad como un prelado de la Iglesia lo es de Dios. A diferencia de la mayoría de los eruditos y de todos los políticos, jamás he retocado un hecho para que encajara en una argumentación. A veces termino por plantear cosas que se contradicen, pero todos sabemos que la coherencia hasta el absurdo es el fetiche de las mentes estrechas.”
En efecto, la honestidad y la sinceridad de Bunker nos “engancha” al relato, pero es en su estilo donde nos subyuga definitivamente. Un total triunfo de Sajalín que podemos disfrutar todos los lectores, no solo de género, sino de la literatura en general.
Los textos provienen de la traducción de Montserrat Gurguí y Hernán Sabaté de La educación de un ladrón de Edward Bunker en Sajalín Editores

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arso dal furore di vivere

Edward Bunker è una piacevole scoperta. L'ho conosciuto leggendo la bella recensione che ha scritto MartinaViola e mi sono incuriosita.
Bunker non è uno che le manda a dire. Scrive in modo crudo e reale. Senza alcuna indulgenza, in primo luogo verso stesso.
Il libro è la sua autobiografia.
Un bambino con una famiglia sfasciata alle spalle, senza punti di riferimento. A 10 anni entra nel carcere minorile, a 13 anni in riformatorio e a 17 anni nel carcere di San Quentin, carcere che ospita il braccio della morte dello stato della California. Da lì uscirà a 22 anni, per poi tornarci dopo un breve periodo e restarvi per altri 18 anni. E' diventato adulto in carcere.
Un adulto la cui personalità non conosce limitazioni o regolamentazioni; le sue azioni sono guidate essenzialmente dall'istintività e dall'impulsività.
Il mondo in cui vive è il mondo dei criminali, le sole regole che conosce e rispetta sono le regole di quel mondo, in cui per sopravvivere devi mordere per non essere morso. L'altro mondo, quello fuori, è quella società ipocrita e benpensante che non dà nessun modo a chi è uscito fuori di tornare dentro.
Bunker ha dalla sua una ferrea determinazione: vuole diventare uno scrittore. Mentre è in carcere mette tutto il suo impegno nella realizzazione di questo obiettivo. O diventa uno scrittore o un fuorilegge, questa è la sua decisione.
E così il mondo "fuori" ha guadagnato uno scrittore, privo di retorica e mai scontato, che racconta che cosa e come si vive in una galera degli USA.

[Ming · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gritty and hard-hitting memoir.

[Chilly SavageMelon · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in Italy last spring, I kept seeing this novel everywhere. Hostel managers were reading it, it was displayed in the front glass in Sienese bookstores. ‘Who’s this mob guy with a novel’, I thought to myself, ‘looks good…’ But imagine my suprise when I found out that not only was the writer an American, he’d also done a cameo as Mr. Blue in ‘Reservior Dogs’! I had to get a copy, which upon returning to the States I did. Fuck Tarantino, but this was the sort of writer I pride myself on being familar with.

And as far as criminal autobiographies go, it’s a rewarding read. Bunker is intelligent, self-educated, knowledgeable about the criminal underworld in which he grew up. Despite time he served in the harshest California prisons: San Quinten, Soledad, Folsom, he had some good breaks along the way as well, and was befriended by a silent era film star Mrs. Hal Wallis, worked for her briefly in his teens. It is this era: when Bunker was 17 in 1950, out of various reform schools, already having done one stint of hard time, but before another huge block of incarceration, that was the most interesting. A knack for trouble, criminal aquaitences he’d made while locked up or roaming east LA, served as a fraternity that would aligned him with pimps, prostitutes and junkies, check forgers and bank robbers, safe crackers and con-men; as well as the aforementioned benefactor who had him employed by LA society types for as long as he could stay out of trouble, which was never long. There are detailed accounts the horrors of life on the inside as well; how to attack first, savagely, before one can be victimized, the moral code of convicts, and stories of ghastly race wars that went on in prisons of the late 60’s and 70’s. Through it all, Bunker wrote, finishing four novels before his first one was ever published, decades after it was completed.

One tale that especially pleased me was his descriptions of an Art Pepper gig he was at, waiting to meet a connection, before things were destined to go wrong. As I understand, Pepper did time in some of these same institutions, but apparently they didn’t know one another while incarcerated.

And unlike another convict writer who attained fame upon his release, Jack Henry Abbott, who stabbed a waiter in a NYC restaurant, much to the dismay of his patron, Norman Mailer, Bunker was able to find ease with modest literary fame in his old age, and has remained a free man for the past two decades. He now has a wife and son, fights health problems with trademark stamina, and continues to enjoy small film roles and to see his works grow. Animal Factory was made into a film in ‘99, and Dustin Hoffman bought the rights to another of his novels.

At times the tone can be egomaniacal, and he assumes everyone is as interested in notorious LA thugs of the 50’s as he or James Ellroy might be, but overall, this work must be described as strangely inspiring. He did it HIS way-

[pierlapo quimby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Se non fosse per qualche eccesso di machismo (peraltro tipicamente statunitense ed ancor più naturale per un tizio che ha passato quasi due decenni in carcere) e qualche lezioncina di morale che francamente si poteva risparmiare, avrebbe meritato la quarta stelletta.
Ma forse incappo nell'errore di giudicare l'uomo e non il libro.
Quel che è certo è che Bunker la penna in mano la sapeva tenere eccome.
E poi tutti gli amanti della lettura dovrebbero inginocchiarsi davanti a chi scrive una frase del genere: "Sono convinto che chi non legge resta uno stupido. Anche se nella vita sa destreggiarsi, il fatto di non ingerire regolarmente parole scritte lo condanna ineluttabilmente all'ignoranza, indipendentemente dai suoi averi e dalle sue attività".

[Jack Ryrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eddie fucking Bunker. One helluva motherfucker who was shit a crap stack of cards. A genius who wouldn't back down. He was either a writer or he was a criminal, he was either a published success or he was going to die behind bars. Thank fuck he got his break.

His autobiographical descriptions of prison life are on par with if not better than Animal Factory. The section of the San Quentin Race Wars is especially insightful. Also what a great source for recommendations. A voracious reader in prison, Bunker seems to have a perfect memory of his own journey of literary consumption. From Jack London The Sea Wolf as a teen, placed among men on death row – to Camus in his 20s reading Reflections on The Guillotine amongst a race war.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. I love prison books and this was a good one. Plus it had a happy ending. I’ve ordered some of Bunker’s fiction—I’m curious to see what that’s like.

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are sentences and then there are sentences. Edward Bunker fought long and hard both to stay alive in America's toughest prisons (San Quentin, Folsom) and also to finally get published. After several years behind bars and six attempts at writing a break-out novel, Bunker finally found literary success with his 1972 book "No Beast So Fierce." Had he not finally been published Bunker would likely have ended up spending the rest of his life behind bars.

Education of a Felon is a memoire that takes the reader through the underbelly of 1950's-60's Los Angeles, both on the streets and in its penal institutions. At seventeen years old Bunker became the youngest inmate to enter San Quentin State Prison (though records indicate he wasn't the shortest.) The two things Bunker seemed to enjoy most in life were crime and writing. I've always wanted to be a career criminal myself but unfortunately for me I had parents who loved me and instilled a deep sense of shame in me. Had I been abandoned at a young age such as Bunker had been I would probably have been up to my eyeballs in whores, blow and bank robberies too.

Besides the escapes and the musings about writing the other really interesting parts of the book deal with Bunker's having met and in the case of Billy Cook assaulted, some of California's most prominent inmates of the day. Bunker was housed in solitary confinement next to notorious jail house lawyer and condemned killer Caryl Chessman. While Bunker was in Folsom later on in his career he was in close proximity to Soledad Brother George Jackson, though friendly relations couldn't be established due to a bit of a race war that was transpiring.

Sure it's a story of redemption, but mainly it's a cautionary tale about what happens when the system habitually abuses children. Considering the assaults on his person by overzealous guards even while a child, the abandonment by parents and mentors alike it is no small wonder that Bunker didn't kick start another holocaust. Thank god for the printed word and its power to save souls.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edward Bunker was not the sort of person you wanted as an enemy. That is, not before he became a published author and cause célèbre. Before that time, he was a thrill-seeking, nihilistic tough guy who you didn't want to cross. He spent most of his first 30 years of life in reform schools and prisons, surviving and learning to be a better felon along the way. However, he always had an ethical side that kept him from being a complete sociopath and that is what probably saved him.

Bunker's story is gripping, gritty and cinema worthy. The Dustin Hoffman film "Straight Time" is loosely based on his first parole that eventually led to him becoming a fugitive. As much as you want to hate him for his crimes, you wind up admiring his personal code and will to survive. You also feel kind of bad that the only part of the 1960's he really got to experience was the race wars behind the walls of San Quentin. The rest of the time he spent reading and trying to be a writer.

There's even a bit of Old Hollywood glamour when he is sponsored by Louise Wallis , wife of producer Hal Wallis, and gets to chauffeur her to San Simeon and other fading palaces.

I didn't want to put it down.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it is not intentional on my part, it seems like at least 4 out of the last 5 books I have read center around Los Angeles. And with the exception of the tale of the paparazzi, the action takes place in the same run down areas during different time periods (and this doesn't even include the books on Patty Hearst and Manson). Bunker's tale takes place mostly in various prisons and reform schools. However, in the 1950s, when he was not behind bars, he frequented seedy nightclubs in West Hollywood... which do not seem all that different from the "punk" hangouts of the 1970s (except the clothes were a lot more stylish).

Like Malcolm X, Edward Bunker is remarkable in that he got almost a Harvard Education behind the walls of San Quentin. That's because prisoners like Caryl Chessman steered him toward better literature. He certainly seems more well read than most college graduates in this day and age. After a rough start (flipping a correction officer's desk and other aggressive acts), he managed to put his temper aside and get paroled when he was still in his early 20's.

It did not last more than a few years as he did some really dumb things that landed him back in prison, despite the patronage of an aging silent film star who lavished him with gifts, favors, a rent free apartment, and a one-time-only invitation to San Simeon (which, safe to say, was not where many newly-released ex-cons ended up). Although many people would find Bunker to be despicable, most of what he did does not seem all that bad by criminal standards (he never stabbed anyone except in prison; and then only in self defense). However, as a parole violator, he was given an automatic ticket back maximum security.

I found his analysis of prison politics and inmate/correction officer culture to be insightful and entertaining (Folsom was apparently a stark contrast to San Quentin). Recommended for fans of true crime, this could very easily be The Citizen Kane of "prison lit."

[Magdalena Solitro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edward Bunker narra le esperienze più significative della sua vita da fuorilegge, dai primi guai nelle case famiglia fino al momento in cui riesce a emanciparsi, pubblicando il suo primo romanzo. La narrazione è, come al solito, onesta e senza filtri. A mio avviso, diverse parti del libro risultano essere un po' lente e rendono la lettura a tratti noiosa. Tuttavia apprezzo l'assoluta onestà con cui Bunker non solo racconta abusi ed episodi di inaudita violenza subita nelle carceri, ma anche il modo in cui non tenta di giustificare i suoi comportamenti dietro a scuse ipocrite.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can't see why this gets bad reviews. I think it's one of the best crime memoirs I've ever read, especially in that it neither over-glorifies his criminal lifestyle nor puts on a bunch of phony repentance. Bunker is a fluid writer with a good style, and he tells a story worth hearing, unadorned and unpretentious.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Quanto alla giustizia, chissà cos'è? Io ho violato molte leggi, ma se ci fosse un dio della giustizia, non so che accadrebbe se mettesse ciò che ho fatto su un piatto della bilancia, e ciò che ho subito sull'altro."

"Può sembrare assurdo, lo so, ma mi pare di non aver mai abbastanza tempo per dedicarmi alle mie letture personali. Sono convinto che chi non legge resta uno stupido. Anche se nella vita sa destreggiarsi, il fatto di non ingerire regolarmente parole scritte lo condanna ineluttabilmente all'ignoranza, indipendentemente dai suoi averi e dalle sue attività."

"Avevo compreso che la scrittura rappresentava la mia sola e unica possibilità di creare qualcosa, di risalire dal pozzo delle tenebre, realizzare il sogno, e riposare al sole."

"...credo che niente esplori le profondità e le tenebre della mente umana meglio dei grandi romanzi, e anche un romanzo discreto può illuminare con la sua luce un crepaccio sconosciuto. Dostoevskij vi fa comprendere la mente di giocatori d'azzardo, assassini e altri individui meglio di qualsiasi psicologo, Freud incluso."

[(TraParentesi) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uno russo, fascio-libertario, cantato da Carrère, cantore della licenza; l'altro yankee, anarco-galeotto, cantato da Tarantino, cantore della cattività. Entrambi Edward e ferrigni: l'uno Limonov.
(L'altro Bunker: una vita dietro le sbarre con sprazzi dietro le quinte di Hollywood).

[Miri Maravall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sublime. Una lectura apasionante, que te rompe en mil pedazos. Supe cuál era mi vocación tras acabarme esta obra.

[Rodrigo Rueda · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Definitivamente, una flor ha crecido en el fango."

[Kareem · Rating 5 out of 5]

First book of the decade read, and I’m happy with that choice.

[Michael S · Rating 5 out of 5]

Education of a Civilan

Great read and moves fast. Good insights about the racial tensions in the penal system and when it gets down to it an accurate depiction of life on the outside.

[Verge Noir · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know what happened to this book along the way, but it had a busload of typos, at least my Kindle copy did. I don’t mind the occasional typo here and there. I read a lot, so I come across typos and misspelled words all the time, it’s no biggie but, being a writer myself I know for a fact that this was not what the author intended, maybe this happened in the formatting process? Still, you would think that an editor would’ve given it a second look or something. Hey! we all make mistakes. Onward…

With an IQ of 152, a broken home, and a penchant for trouble; career criminal Edward Bunker, aged seventeen, became the youngest inmate in San Quentin where he wrote his first novel No Beast So Fierce. Go read it now, I’ll wait…

Gutsy, gritty and hard-hitting memoirs don’t get any better than this. This ain’t a Hollywood, slash, Rock Star memoir written by a ‘ghost writer’ this is the author, taking pen to paper and telling his life story in the most straightforward way possible, he even warns us, about things and events being a little out of whack because He didn’t intend to write about it, and it’s the way he remembers what he went through, and boy-howdy did he go through a violent meat grinder. He offers an unflinching look at the often violent, and brutal realities of prison life while dropping his unique insight into what drives people to commit crimes; be it social hypocrisy, ignorance, drugs or mental problems, a crappy education system or a fallible justice system. It’s a miracle that Mr. Bunker didn’t become a sociopath, in the true sense of the word, like a serial killer, or worse (is there something worse than a serial killer?) I’m no shrink but I think that his salvation was due in great part to luck, a keen intellect, and his love for the written word. Mr. Bunker went on to become a prolific writer and actor. The Mr. Blue of the book title refers to the name of the character he played in the innovative Quentin Tarantino flick Reservoir Dogs.

‘A lotus definitely grows from the mud.’

Edward Bunker, born December 31, 1933; died July 19, 2005, R. I. P Mr. Bunker. R. I. P.

5 out of 5

[La mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solo alla fine del libro ho capito che Bunker è il Mr. Blue de “Le iene”, che da un suo libro è stato tratto “Vigilato Speciale” con Dustin Hoffman, che l’amico Danny Trejo conosciuto a San Quentin è il protagonista di Machete e molti altri film di successo. Nel momento in cui scriveva questo libro Bunker era coccolato da Tarantino, usciva a cena con Clooney, veniva acclamato come scrittore da James Ellroy. La vita che racconta in questa autobiografia avrebbe potuto probabilmente essere resa molto più “glamour”, vista l’evoluzione da canaglia precoce a scrittore di successo. Bunker invece racconta la sua storia con molto distacco. Consapevole dei suoi difetti ma anche delle sue capacità, sembra concentrato verso l’unico obiettivo di portare il suo lettore dentro un mondo sconosciuto, il mondo della delinquenza e del carcere. Bunker fin da giovane percepisce il valore della cultura, è un lettore vorace, possiede un’intelligenza fuori dal comune che lo porta a distinguersi dalla massa e a sopravvivere. Ma paradossalmente, quando esprime giudizi su persone “esterne” al suo mondo, inclusa la moglie, considera “limitata” la cultura di chi non abbia mai conosciuto il carcere. Un microcosmo aberrante, con regole proprie, a cui Bunker ovviamente cerca di fuggire ma che nello stesso tempo “accetta” come scuola di vita e fonte di ispirazione. Bunker racconta storie che conosce, riduce al minimo l’invenzione, sembra convinto che il materiale di cui dispone non necessiti di null’altro che di essere narrato. E il valore della sua scrittura è proprio nella capacità di mettere la narrazione al centro, lasciando da parte ogni altra considerazione.

[Geoff · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were times in Edward Bunker's life that he did transend his surroundings and people's expectations. Then there were times when he fulfilled society's expectations. The first 100 pages offer some great history and insights into LA in the 1940's and 50's and at times our own criminal justice system. Sadly, the momentum wanes and Bunker begins to wander. Always offering enough insights and mystery to keep the reader trudging through the pages of repetitive, Henry Milleresque, re-tellings of crimes past. I have to admit that when Bunker was on he was a really really good writer. This book may have been better if he had an editor, which is something Edward Bunker rejected as a person in general. It does peek my interest to read his fiction though.

[Eve Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read Bunker's novels first, a few books, before finding out he had been in jail himself. There always was a somewhat strange air about his stories and reading about his personal life I realized what it was. None of his works felt pretentious or snobbish in any way. Not that you would ever expect that in novels about jail or crime. But he was so real and staight forward, it made sense, his life. When I read this book about his life, I lost all interest in the rest of his books. None of them even came close to his personal life. The book is maybe written in a little too much of a detailed way to my taste, but the events and the people all seem interesting. I felt like I was reading an actual crime novel. And a better one at that than his actual novels.