False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons

by Malcolm Braly

FALSE STARTS"It seemed clear to me I had always known I was going to jail. When I had bolted Redding to try to join the Navy, I had known. When I had told Percy, "We'll be back," I had known. When I had followed George into the all-night diner, I had known. I had served more time for a handful of inept burglaries than most men would have served for killing a police officer, and the prison was only my chosen instrument in the willful destruction of my own life."Malcolm Braly spent the better part of his life behind bars. Arrested for a botched teenage burglary, he made one mistake after another, always returning to the institution that turned a sensitive young man into a hardened con. This is his story, an indictment of both his own failings and those of a system that seeks to reform those weaknesses, but instead only reinforces them. From foster child to delinquent to armed robber to escaped convict, we follow Braly as he chases after his freedom--continually confronted by his own self-destructive actions--before turning to the outlet of writing that allowed him to succeed.

375 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Abandoned by his parents, Braly lived between foster homes and institutions for delinquent children, and by the time he was forty had spent nearly seventeen years in prison for burglary, serving time at Nevada State Prison, San Quentin, and Folsom State Prison. He wrote three novels behind bars, Felony Tank (1961), Shake Him Till He Rattles (1963), and It’s Cold Out There (1966), and upon his release in 1965 began to work on On the Yard. When prison authorities learned of the book they threatened to revoke his parole, and he was forced to complete it in secret. Published in 1967, after Braly’s parole had expired, On the Yard received wide acclaim. It was followed by his autobiography, False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons (1976), and a final work of fiction, The Protector (1979). Malcolm Braly enjoyed fifteen years of freedom before his death in a car accident at age fifty-four.

Reviews

[V · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first found Malcolm Braly through his book “On the Yard,” but the whole time I was reading it I kept wondering who he was. His fiction is good but I wanted to know how he had gotten to writing that book, and being a writer in prison no less. False Starts has the answers I was searching for. I don’t think I would have appreciated this memoir as much if I hadn’t stumbled across his fiction first. It’s now one of my favorite books. A very important read.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Malcolm Braly’s False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons (1976) is the best of the prison memoirs I have read. Braly was a child of the Great Depression, and suffered a childhood notably rootless and broken, even by the standards of that terrible time. But he does not attribute his criminality to that experience. Rather, he writes, ”I was, from any beginning I can recall, a liar, a sneak, a braggart, a show-off and a thief.”

He served time in a juvenile facility, and then in adult prisons in Nevada and Califoria, from the early 1940’s to the mid-1960’s, with several ”interludes,” as he calls them, of freedom between prison terms. There are certain constants in incarceration throughout the decades, and Braly captures in vivid and memorable language such eternal features as parole hearings and classification interviews.

But in other respects, Braly’s memoir recalls a time prior to our present period of mass incarceration, and in some respects the experience of incarceration has changed. Especially in the early years of Braly’s incarceration, the absence of intense overcrowding pressures seems to have allowed prisons to be not so much the explosive pressure cookers we have today.

I highly recommend the book, not only for its content, but because Braly writes clear, insightful prose. A couple of examples from his chapter on the parole hearing:

”In the psych department another report is prepared, one you will never see – the file clerk there is an incorruptible free man – and one certain to sound negative, whether it was intended to be or not. There is little you can say in the language of their discipline which doesn’t sound ominous.”

”In the library an inmate clerk checks your card to tell the Adult Authority what you’ve been reading, and in the chapel of your choice (I had naturally set myself down as an atheist, but here, as in Ireland, you must be either a Protestant or Catholic atheist) someone writes a brief report on your religious participation. The board is not enthusiastic about Pauline conversions. Still, every once in a while someone will try to run this number, but it’s not regarded as a classy route to go.”

”The Adult Authority, like visiting heads of important states whose inconvenience in the smallest matter might be reflected in negotiations of the gravest importance, is treated with great deference. Hearings never start before 10 a.m., but the inmates scheduled to appear first are routed out at 5 a.m., fed, and held in readiness against the remote chance the Adult Authority might start early. They never do, but whenever they enter the hearing room and press the buzzer, an inmate is immediately provided.”

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Autobiographical account focusing on the decades that the author spent in prison. The 50's and 60's were a time when prison reform and convict rehabilitation were starting to gain steam. Braly is a storyteller and there is clearly a conflict between telling the truth and romanticizing himself and his life, but I think enough reality comes through to make the book worthwhile. It would be stereotyping to extrapolate Braly's character to criminals in general, but his persistent world view of "what, you are saying laws apply to _me_? I don't get it. That doesn't seem right." even after decades of prison seems remarkable to me.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐Note the Kurt Vonnegut blurb on the cover⭐⭐⭐

Found this in the library by serendipity (yet another reason to keep physical books on shelves).

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect before I started it. I didn't have high hopes, it just sounded so different from what I normally read, and something about it piqued my interest.

I'd never heard of the book or author, but he wrote several books about his life/time in various prisons and this isn't even considered his best. The writing, for the most part, is surprisingly good, and his style is unique to say the least.

Recommended.

[Daniel Polansky]

A fascinating and readable history of the first half of the author's life. This is fascinating simply as a (seemingly accurate) account of the life of a small time criminal, but Braly is also a perceptive and sympathetic critic of his society and his own circumstance, the injustices and personal failings which led him to waste 25 odd years in state correctional facilities.

[Donn Eastwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slow walking

I only regret that I have already read all of Malcom Braly I can get my hands on. I've read all of Edward Bunker and Dannie Martin too. I guess I'll try Caryl Chessman.

[Frank Hickey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do you want to know how a California judge's son winds up in San Quentin prison?
Then, read this book.
Are you interested in the slippery slope of high spirits leading to love and petty crimes?
Again, I repeat, read this book.
Braly is brilliant and funny at the same time.
He wrote what is considered to be the Great American prison novel, 'On the Yard.'
Read this book and learn about a genius writer who died in a car crash as a free man, aged 40.

***Frank Hickey, Los Angeles Police Department, retired.

[F. Service · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly amazing. The writing, the candor, the growth, the journey. Never wanted to put it down.