Purgatory
A Prison Diary Volume 2
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4.0 • 30 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Purgatory: A Prison Diary, Volume 2, is Jeffrey Archer's frank, shocking, sometimes humorous, sometimes horrifying account of his incarceration.
On August 9, 2001, 22 days after Archer--now known as Prisoner FF8282--was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury, he was transferred from a maximum security prison in London to HMP Wayland, a medium security prison in Norfolk. For the next 67 days, as he waited to be reclassified for an "open," minimum security prison, he encountered not only the daily degradations of a dangerously overstretched prison system but also the spirit and courage of his fellow inmates.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As recounted in this second installment of his prison diary, Archer's 67 days at Wayland, a medium-security facility in Norfolk, sounds much more pleasant than the time he spent at a maximum-security facility in London, where his status as a bestselling novelist and member of the House of Lords didn't help much. At Wayland, after making the right connections, he could use his considerable fortune to buy decent food, extra phone cards, have his laundry done even arrange to bid on a $900,000 painting by the Colombian artist Botero, thanks to an inmate being deported back to that country. But as he points out after a fight between prisoners results in a man's head being split open by a snooker ball, "I go into great detail to describe this incident simply because those casually reading this diary might be left with an impression that life at Wayland is almost bearable. It isn't." Archer comes across as a remarkable piece of work a character only a novelist as subtle as Anthony Powell could invent. At one moment he's remembering discussions with fellow Conservative politicians about the future of the party; the next he's complaining about the prison menu. What obviously kept him going and will keep readers turning the pages is his ability to write by hand up to 3,000 words a day of his journals and his 2002 novel, Sons of Fortune, while maintaining the wry humor that can cause him to comment, after seeing a recent TV adaptation of Great Expectations, "If I hadn't been in prison, I would have walked out after fifteen minutes."
Customer Reviews
Good reading
Very nice book. Good learn the inner working in the British jail system. Can't wait to read the next book!
purgartory
The book is good but way too many typographical errors. Does anyone proof read at all? Hardly a page goes by without an error. When asked to pay, one would not expect such shoddy presentation.
Archer is one of my favorites
I have been reading Archer's books for some 25 years, first discovering him during a summer college recess. I have religiously read every book except volumes 2&3 of the prison diaries. I could never find them in hardcover in the US. With the iPad it was easy to get volume 2. While not as interesting as his novels, I enjoyed this volume of his prison diary. He provides interesting insight to prison life and one cant but help think of the juxtaposition of Lord Archer in a penal institution. While I sense he often felt that it was wrong for him to be in prison (I'm innocent I swear! which seems to be the mantra of all convicts) he seems to have adapted to life and tried to make the best of it.
Again not quite as enjoyable as his splendid novels, but still a quick and interesting read.