Brother One Cell: An American Coming of Age in South Korea's Prisons (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In May 1994, Thomas, a slacker vagabond teaching English, was arrested in Seoul, South Korea, for smuggling hashish into the country. He served three and a half years in various prisons and was released in 1997. In this strangely uneventful memoir, Thomas recounts his trials and tribulations in flat, unmodulated prose. Using an unnecessarily complicated flashback style at the beginning, Thomas presents himself as an innocent abroad—a symbol of the legions of disaffected middle-class youth wandering the globe aimlessly looking for, well, they don't really know. While teaching English to Korean children, Thomas falls in with an unsavory lot and heads to the Philippines for a drug deal. This goes awry, and he lands in prison, where he meets and befriends various other foreigners. One prison is like a U.N. of convicted losers. Most troubling is that while Thomas gives the reader plenty of detail and keeps the story moving forward well enough, he seems little affected by the experience. It is as though, as a relatively privileged American, Thomas is so stunned by being forced to serve his full term for his crime that he is unable or unwilling to be humbled by the experience. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* In 1994, Thomas was a bright young man just out of college, looking to satisfy his wanderlust by teaching English in South Korea. His taste for adventure was formed in early childhood when he and his brother invented an imaginary character named the "Jolly Marauder," a pirate-nobleman with a fearless heart and a take-no-prisoners attitude. Thomas claimed the Jolly Marauder as his life model, which influenced his decisions to accept the teaching job in Seoul, work there illegally without a contract, and buy a cheap kilo of hashish in the Philippines to sell back in Seoul for a cool 10 grand. The fantasy ended, however, when Thomas was caught by the police and sentenced to three and a half years in a South Korean prison. In his memoir, Thomas explains how that time of incarceration represented his real education. Surprisingly, he found little brutality (no rape) in Korea's penal institutions, but there were language barriers, unfamiliar foreign customs, extreme codes of social hierarchy, and almost no individual freedoms. He had to overcome all of this, as well as his own personal demons, to get to a place of higher understanding--something that, amazingly, he seemed to accomplish. His account of that journey is gripping. Jerry Eberle
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (March 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067003827X
• ISBN-13: 978-0670038275
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #591,894 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gets to the Marrow of Korea, May 6, 2007

By	Steven D. Ward "Editor" (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

It took me a while to get my hands on this book after reading about Thomas in an issue of Esquire Magazine, I think it was. I had to get it shipped to me here in Korea through a book importer. I couldn't wait for it to arrive because I was so impressed with the magazine article that I had high expectations for the book.

My expectations were fully met. I've been interested in Korea for about seven years now, coming here twice as a student, and now living and working here while studying Korean. I've read several books about Korean culture, economy, etc, etc. None of the previous books I have read were able to paint such a vivid and profound picture of the culture I have come to love, in spite of its flaws.

Somehow, by experiencing a side of the country that we rarely hear about, he is able to understand the essence of Korean society and illustrate it in ways that rang true with my own experiences while simultaneously shedding new light on aspects that I still struggle with. In particular, it was interesting reading this book while settling into a job as the only non-Korean full-time employee of a Korean company. Not that prison compares to company life in the least.

This book is good on several levels. Other reviewers have already discussed the merits of the book as a memoir, etc, so I wanted to praise the book specifically as a book that relates to Korea, though perhaps not as many readers will be interested in this aspect of the book. I hope a Korean translation is released, because I think it would be an interesting perspective for Koreans to read about as well.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and troubline, April 1, 2007

By	Margaret Dybala "too many books, too little time" (Pearland, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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Cullen Thomas writes a strangely affecting book about his time in Korea. He goes there as a typical young American, no goals, not exceedingly smart or particularly stupid. Just a nice kid, really. He makes the mistake of underestimating the Koreans and gets caught shipping hashish over international borders. Somehow, he thinks the Koreans should notice that he is really a nice kid and that he hasn't hurt anyone. He is so presumptious, naive, and condescending to the Koreans that it is staggering. He is honestly surprised when he is found guilty of doing exactly what he did (and actually is found guilty of a lesser charge of "using" rather than "selling"). His time in prison is fascinating as he meets many interesting people and finally comes to accept responsibility for his own fate. I rather admired the Koreans, who certainly have a better penal system than we do (given the opportunity to apply to serve his last year in the States, he doesn't want to). I wish this young man well in the future, and hope that he writes more.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding Absolution in the Least Likely Place, January 26, 2008

By	Ayun Halliday "Author of No Touch Monkey!" (Beautiful Brooklyn New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

First things first. If your name is listed in red ink, and almost everybody else's is in black, it does not mean that you've won a prize. Do not try to collect your package from the window. Cullen did and he wound up serving 3 and a half years in a series of Korean Houses of D.

Ever since I read a Giant Robot article about Asian and Asian-American inmates stockpiling ramen, ketchup packets, soy sauce packets and other odds and ends to create ersatz versions of the dishes they craved, I've been fascinated with prisoner resourcefulness. In this respect Brother One Cell is a very satisfying travelogue. Cullen is a big, unseasoned foreigner, not yet fluent, completely inexperienced as a criminal, who must learn to survive as a prisoner - how to talk to people, how to make sure he gets his mail, how to deal with mosquitos, extreme cold and fluorescent lights that stay on 24 hours a day...

Even more satisfying is the transformative mental and phillosophical journey upon which the author embarks, at first unconsciously and then with growing determination. The appreciation and grace at which he eventually arrives is a good reminder for those of us who've been spoiled by taken-for-granted freedom, cooshy living conditions and Get Out Of Jail Free cards we didn't necessarily deserve.