Shaking It Rough: A Prison Memoir

by Andreas Schroeder

Schroeder, Andreas

214 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

As the “resident Scam-meister” on the popular CBC Radio show Basic Black, Andreas Schroeder spent twelve years reporting on ingenious frauds, swindles, and hoaxes that have been committed around the world. Though the radio show ended in 2002, Andreas’s fascination with the subject continued, culminating in the publication of Scams! (2004), stories of some of history’s greatest tricksters.

Aside from having had one of the world’s all-time greatest job titles, Andreas has been an avid reader all his life and a writer for most of it. Born to a German-speaking Mennonite family who emigrated from Poland to Canada in 1951 (when he was five), he lived for 10 years on a farm in B.C.’s Fraser Valley, where he avoided farm chores whenever possible in order to spend his time reading. As a boy he wrote poetry and short stories in both German and English. A move to Vancouver when he was 15 introduced him to his own brand of paradise: libraries (free books!), bookstores on every corner, and a burgeoning population of fellow writers. He has never looked back.

Andreas and his wife, Sharon, lived for many years on a mountaintop in Mission City, near the B.C.–Washington State border, in a round four-story tower they built themselves. Today they live by the ocean on the Sunshine Coast with their daughter, Vanessa. Another daughter, Sabrina, travels the world as a composer. True to the West Coast ethos, Andreas enjoys motorcycling, paragliding, and skiing—when he’s not reading or writing, which he is most of the time.

Andreas Schroeder has published more than 20 books. Scams!, part of Annick Press’s True Stories from the Edge series, is his first book for young adults. Thieves! (2005) features ten enduring stories about the cunning plans and daring capers of thieving criminals.

Reviews

[Dizzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

i stole this book from the library of a 24hr korean spa (sorry). i initially picked it out because i loved the typeface of the title and the thick feel of the pages, though i was quickly engrossed in the novel as i read it inside a himalayan salt sauna. this book was surprisingly funny, tender, poetic, philosophical, endearing, and analytical. happy that this book found me when + as it did - proof that not all theft is criminal, sometimes the universe just wants you to have something <3!

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Andreas Schroeder immediately caught me and shook me with this memoir. It's intimate, funny, beautifully written, and disruptive of my notions of our prison system. The author's sketches of fellow inmates (the man looked "like ten sticks of taped dynamite with the fuse lit") are well crafted. Excellent and important storytelling.

[Seren B · Rating 3 out of 5]

some good insight on the prison system in canada, good resource on prison work camps in bc in the 70s