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Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries
Scotland had a brutal prison system in the 1970s – and Jimmy Boyle spent fifteen years locked up.
Born in 1944, Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals, slum tenements now cleared but back then synonymous with crime and deprivation. As he himself has said, he never really had a chance. He got involved in gang violence and at the age of twenty-three was sentenced to life for murder.
But he is a survivor. Despite clashes with authorities and spells in solitary confinement, he became one of the first offenders to participate in a program which included art therapy. Within a few years he had published a best-selling memoir and learned how to sculpt. He also negotiated with prison officials on behalf of other prisoners, and lobbied government for reform.
Pain of Confinement, written in diary form, records in grim detail the monotony and degradation of prison life. But it is also an inspiring account of one man’s rehabilitation and redemption. Boyle has always denied committing the crime for which he was imprisoned. This is both an indictment of a society too ready to lock up young men from poor backgrounds, and of the brutality of the penal system once inside.
Jimmy Boyle was released on parole in 1980. He had successfully overcome the system and was at last free. He never returned to crime, and now lives in the South of France.
‘Astounding and justifiably famous diary of one man's incarceration at the hands of the brutal Scottish penal system’- Goodreads
Jimmy Boyle has published a memoir A Sense of Freedom, and two novels, Hero of the Underworld and A Stolen Smile. He is also an internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor. He divides his time between France and Morocco with his second wife, British actress Kate Fenwick.
Born in 1944, Boyle grew up in Glasgow’s Gorbals, slum tenements now cleared but back then synonymous with crime and deprivation. As he himself has said, he never really had a chance. He got involved in gang violence and at the age of twenty-three was sentenced to life for murder.
But he is a survivor. Despite clashes with authorities and spells in solitary confinement, he became one of the first offenders to participate in a program which included art therapy. Within a few years he had published a best-selling memoir and learned how to sculpt. He also negotiated with prison officials on behalf of other prisoners, and lobbied government for reform.
Pain of Confinement, written in diary form, records in grim detail the monotony and degradation of prison life. But it is also an inspiring account of one man’s rehabilitation and redemption. Boyle has always denied committing the crime for which he was imprisoned. This is both an indictment of a society too ready to lock up young men from poor backgrounds, and of the brutality of the penal system once inside.
Jimmy Boyle was released on parole in 1980. He had successfully overcome the system and was at last free. He never returned to crime, and now lives in the South of France.
‘Astounding and justifiably famous diary of one man's incarceration at the hands of the brutal Scottish penal system’- Goodreads
Jimmy Boyle has published a memoir A Sense of Freedom, and two novels, Hero of the Underworld and A Stolen Smile. He is also an internationally acclaimed artist and sculptor. He divides his time between France and Morocco with his second wife, British actress Kate Fenwick.
372 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 16, 2022
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About the author
Jimmy Boyle
10 books5 followersJames Boyle is a Scottish former gangster and convicted murderer who became a sculptor and novelist after his release from prison.
In 1967, Boyle was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William "Babs" Rooney. He served fourteen years before his release in 1980. Boyle has always denied killing Rooney but has acknowledged having been a violent and sometimes ruthless moneylender from the Gorbals, one of the roughest and most deprived areas of Glasgow. During his incarceration in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977), which was later turned into a film of the same name.
Boyle has published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries (1984), and a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999). The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Rêve des Condamnés (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002. He also wrote a novel, A Stolen Smile, which is about the theft of the Mona Lisa and how it ends up hidden on a Scottish housing scheme.
In 1967, Boyle was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of another gangland figure, William "Babs" Rooney. He served fourteen years before his release in 1980. Boyle has always denied killing Rooney but has acknowledged having been a violent and sometimes ruthless moneylender from the Gorbals, one of the roughest and most deprived areas of Glasgow. During his incarceration in the special unit of Barlinnie Prison, he turned to art and wrote an autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977), which was later turned into a film of the same name.
Boyle has published Pain of Confinement: Prison Diaries (1984), and a novel, Hero of the Underworld (1999). The latter was adapted for a French film, La Rage et le Rêve des Condamnés (The Anger and Dreams of the Condemned), and won the best documentary prize at the Fifa Montreal awards in 2002. He also wrote a novel, A Stolen Smile, which is about the theft of the Mona Lisa and how it ends up hidden on a Scottish housing scheme.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 13, 2024
It’s an okay read. I liked parts of the book that were raw and showed the torture Jimmy was going through. Most of the book however was very very boring. I didn’t enjoy the book but it isn’t bad.
Displaying 1 of 1 review