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| Ted Conover has this thing with walls. He doesn’t like them. That aversion, together with his concerns about America’s exploding prison industry, led Conover to sign on as a corrections officer at Sing Sing, New York state’s infamous prison. Conover’s notes on his experiences there became Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, a touching and brutally honest indictment of U.S. prison life. The book excels in two areas: Conover’s interactions with prisoners, which humanize the inmates and the author, and the thorough history of Sing Sing and its role in the developing philosophy of incarceration. The material analyzing his fellow guards — who they are, why they work there, how the job affects them — is weaker, though Conover asserts early on that this subject is central to his story. It’s a minor flaw. Overall, Conover has crafted a compelling and very timely narrative about the walled-off world created by taxpayers, and the deeds carried out there in our name. – Reviewed by Alan Choate |
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