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Read Hole In My Life (2004)

Hole in My Life (2004)

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Rating
3.74 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0374430896 (ISBN13: 9780374430894)
Language
English
Publisher
farrar, straus and giroux (byr)

Hole In My Life (2004) - Plot & Excerpts

Lucas Pires MoraisMs.WhiteIndependent Reading18th October 12Hole in my LifeBy Jack Gantos, Biography, 200 PagesHole in my life is a very eye opening auto biography by Jack Gantos, a young American man who led a life without any superstition. Today Gantos is a successful children’s book write, but he was not the person he is today. Jack learned from his mistakes the hard way. In this book, he explains how his life in high school was like and how he was a very spoiled boy, with fast cars and a fake ID and such. Jack’s family moved around a lot and when his father got a job in Puerto Rico, Jack started working with him. This is when he began his path involving drugs. He wanted to be a writer and believed that Marijuana would actually help him become more creative, which was not a good idea. Jack also needed money for college and when he was offered 10,000 dollars to go on a boat full of hashish from the Virgin Isles to New York, he grasps the opportunity. This trip ended up badly and Jack was caught and sent to prison for that. In the story, we follow Jack as he faces a 6 year sentence in Jail. Throughout his journey in jail, he learned valuable life lessons by living with al the violence and cruelness of a prisoner’s life, and along his journey, Jack accidentally found what he was looking for the most, which was the focus and dedication of a successful writer. I liked this book because it also had lots of funny parts but contained serious scenes too that really made you think about what the right life choices are and how bad decisions can change your life forever.

This is one of those rare books that is on my "in-the-classroom" shelf but not on my "kidbooks" shelf! While Jack Gantos generally writes for children, this book is definitely geared toward an older audience. I picked it up because I had recently read Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key and I know from a shorter memoir that Gantos was kind of a tough customer as a kid (or at least a wannabe), so I was interested to learn more about his life.The narrative itself is well-written and moderately engaging. I'm glad this book was rather short, because otherwise I don't know if I would have finished it. To me, it was interesting to read about Gantos' reading and writing life as a young adult. He was a prolific reader, but read the kinds of books I usually shy away from and have only read because I had to for assignments (Hemingway, The Red Badge of Courage, stuff like that). He reads the kind of stuff you'd expect a manly convict bookworm to read.This is definitely outside my usual reading choices because it's a true crime story, but firmly inside my usual fare because it's a memoir by an author. I like to see what kinds of life experiences end up in an author's fiction and what kinds of reading and writing experiences a person had before eventually getting published. So, I got to read about Jack Gantos' early writing adventures along with his drug smuggling and jail adventures!This book has some interesting things to say about punishment. It's kind of cool how Gantos acknowledges that he didn't have a moral problem with smuggling drugs, just a fear of getting caught.

What do You think about Hole In My Life (2004)?

“I stood up and went downstairs. But I didn’t sleep. Hamilton had read my mind – I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just afraid of the punishment.”17-year-old Jack Gantos wants to be a writer. However, he’s a little confused as how to go about really becoming one. He spends a lot of time drinking himself into a stupor, smoking pot, working, and cruising around in his car. When he realizes he has no way to afford the cost of college, he moves out to St. Croix to help his father with the family construction business. However racial tension has cast a social and economic cloud over the island. When he is offered an opportunity to help smuggle a boat-load of hash to New York for 10.000 dollars, he jumps at the opportunity. But the plan doesn't work out as swimmingly as he'd hoped. When his indiscretions land him in prison, Jack is forced to think about the man he really wants to become. Ultimately, this aspiring writer manages to find creative ways of pursuing his dreams under the most challenging of circumstances. Beautifully,honestly, and accessibly written, Hole in My Life is an inspirational autobiographical account of the real-life adolescent struggles of a successful children's author.
—Elaine Pelton

Jack Gantos's memoir, despite being promoted as the story of one big mistake is really an exploration of how a string of small mistakes can land you somewhere you never wanted to go. Gantos's downfall started with a seemingly innocent decision to accompany a friend to a party and smoke some weed. From there, Gantos makes a string of increasingly foolish decisions, spurred on by "friends" who aren't really friends at all, and unchecked by his parents, who are largely absent from the narrative. With the first page, you know where Jack is going to end up, but it takes most of the book to get him to that point, where he realizes that he has made a mistake, lumping all his smaller mistakes into the one big one, taking a job smuggling hash into New York. When Gantos ends up in prison, it isn't a surprise, but his reaction is a pleasant one. Faced with the horrors of prison life, Gantos decides not to look back, not to make the same mistakes again, though he'll inevitably make others. And that is where this book gets its value. It would be a mistake to hand this book to a young teen, and even older teens may need guidance to deal with some of the more difficult aspects, but in the end, Gantos's experience brought him to the realization that drugs are not a valid life choice. Some may find fault with the reasoning he employs, or even question the reliablity of the narrator, but the sweep of the narrative leads the reader to a good place in the end.
—Alex

I met Jack Gantos back in the early to mid '90's when he was an instructor in Emerson College's MFA program. He stood out from the pack. For starters, he was (and judging by his videos today, still is) a snappy dresser, a notable departure from the running-shoe and tired jeans look favored by many writers. His advice was uncommonly practical, with an emphasis on story structure that has proven very useful. And above all, there was his manner: unassuming, yet compelling; witty, but never deprecating. There were rumors about Jack having done time in jail, something related to drugs, that seemed absurd, so completely out of place with his character. I dismissed the rumors as the usual student body bullshit. Then I discovered this amazing memoir: yeah, Jack was involved in a drug deal, shuttling 500 pounds of hash from St. Croix to Manhattan. And the venture, not surprisingly, did not go well: Jack ended up in jail for about a year, the "hole" in his life. I love this book, not just because the core story is genuinely remarkable, but because Jack tells it with perfect pitch. He neither moralizes nor excuses; he's forgiving of his younger self without ever indulging him. By the end of the book, it's clear that this isn't some "misery memoir," but the story of a young writer finding a resolve and a voice he hadn't known before. When I finished "Hole in My Life," there was a little one in mine because I missed the narrator so much. I recommend the book to anyone 14 and up.
—Jonathan Kranz

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