The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber [Hardcover]

Joe Loya (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2004

A searing story about the painful climb one man must make from a life of crime to one filled with honor

Growing up in a devoutly religious family with a father who believed in firm discipline and who was also studying for a Protestant ministry, Joe Loya Jr. seemed a blessed child. When he was seven, however, his life was drastically altered when his mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

During the two years that led to her death, Joe's pious and studious father became more and more violent, brutally beating his two young sons. This contradiction haunted Joe for years until one day, at age sixteen, during a particularly severe beating, he finally retaliated and stabbed his father in the neck.

For Joe, this was the starting point of a life of crime: petty theft, forgery, fraud, and ultimately, bank robbery. When Joe was finally arrested after holding up his twenty-fourth bank, he was sent to prison, where he would serve seven years.

In prison, his criminal behavior only got worse, as he began to deal drugs, smuggle weapons, and even assault fellow prisoners, until he was placed in solitary confinement, the lowest of lows even for convicts. There, alone in his cell for two years, he was finally able to forgive his father, finding clarity, cultural insight, and redemption through writing.

During a soulful correspondence with acclaimed author Richard Rodriguez, Loya ultimately found that he wasn't alone in his struggle to discover his identity, and that anger is sometimes the doorway toward realizing one's self and one's purpose.

Although the images that propel an angry young man toward a life of crime may leave readers shuddering, the power of Joe Loya's incredible story will surely remind us that we must not lose hope that wayward sons and daughters may one day return home.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this well-written, insightful memoir, reformed bank robber Loya provides a searing account of the physical and emotional scars he received growing up in East Los Angeles. After his mother's death, both Loya and his younger brother suffered horrible beatings from their father, a Protestant minister. While Loya avoids blaming his eventual career as a criminal on his father's brutality, the resulting feelings of helplessness clearly played a major role in transforming a bookish nerd into a violent thug. Pushed beyond his limits, Loya finally takes drastic steps to protect himself. His rapid descent into a life of crime leads to a demeaning and grueling prison stretch. Loya does a masterful job of conveying the survivalist ethos he's forced to adopt while incarcerated. His gradual rejection of that code, nurtured and sustained by a pen-pal relationship with poet Richard Rodriguez, is a little less well-developed, and his ending the narrative shortly after his release leaves unanswered some of the thoughtful questions he raises about rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Nonetheless, many readers will find Loya's honesty and self-awareness gripping and will root for him to transcend his inner demons.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The New Yorker

In his twenties, Loya achieved notoriety as the smooth-talking "Beirut Bandit," who robbed dozens of Southern California banks. When the police caught up with him, in 1989, they discovered a Mexican-American from East L.A. who had once been a promising student. Imprisoned for seven years, he grew more violent until two years of solitary confinement prompted a remarkable self-transformation. Loya's memoir, begun in prison, is less concerned with his crimes than with their background—his family history, the details of barrio life, and the peculiar cultural currents that led him to identify with Reagan Republicanism and then to seek its perceived entitlements by any means. In the end, Loya's account of his struggle to redeem himself seems more genuinely thrilling than his crime spree.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Rayo; 1 edition (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060508922
• ISBN-13: 978-0060508920
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,901,053 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Honesty is all aspects, July 10, 2005

By 

P. Loya (Orange County, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber (Hardcover)

I'm writing this review, because I lived it. I lived with Joe and know that this book is true, and the honesty with which this book is written can only be appreciated by people willing to take a look at their lives and what their doing to move forward from mistakes they have made. Joe's life can be seen, and often is, as a study on how the power of believing in yourself and change can make you a better person. Kudos to my big brother for changing his life and becoming a contributor to society. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever been in a domestic violent situation, or knows someone who is suffering in one.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Not Your Typical Book., September 18, 2004

By 

Rogina Ruiz "Gina Ruiz" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber (Hardcover)

Joe Loya is an ex-convict, ex-bank robber turned writer whose correspondence with essayist Richard Rodriguez provides him with an anchor while he is imprisoned.

His story is appalling, violent and absolutely riveting. At times, I had to put it down because some of the things that happened to him or that he did were just so horrific. Mr. Loya writes so well, however that I kept picking this book back up again to find out what happened.

It's an amazing look into the psyche of this precocious little boy who, through the abuse he suffers from his father, slowly evolves into this manipulative criminal. This book shows us so clearly how violence and abuse affect society as a whole.

Mr. Loya's transition from bible verse spouting boy to manipulative, lying young man, to bank robber, to prisoner, to writer is a journey into a life we rarely, if ever see or want to. It is a beautifully written and detailed account of his life.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A story that outgrew its genre, October 12, 2004

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber (Hardcover)

While visiting New York, I saw Loya's book in a bookstore -- and then learned he would be giving a live reading in Greenwich Village. Loya, a gifted speaker and writer, tells his story with unsparing honesty, even with a touch of humor. His book can be read as a testament to the power of circumstances.

Loya's early years were happy ones. After his mother died, Loya's father became abusive, and Loya felt helpless to help himself and, especially, his younger brother. Out of this rage grew a career in crime, particularly bank robbery. By the end of his career, Loya had robbed something like two dozen banks. The end was inevitable.

Once in prison, Loya adapted. As he demonstrates vividly, the only way to survive in prison is to develop an accommodation to violent people and violent behavior. You can't show weakness. You never back down.

Loya doesn't philosophize about prison, as Jean Harris did in her books about Bedford. He was young when he entered the system and didn't have the tools of life experience or education.

Actually he bears some resemblance to Frank Abegnale, author of Catch Me If You Can, also an incidental criminal whose career began following an unstable home life. And like Abegnale, he recognizes that his life after prison was made possible only because he could start a new career.

Abegnale became a security consultant. And Loya, thanks to the mentorship of Richard Rodriguez, became a writer and performer.

Ironically, Loya's transformation comes from what many would view as a miscarriage of justice. Falsely accused of involvement in the murder of a former cellmate, Loya gets sent to solitary confinement for two years of his seven-year sentence, solely on the basis of suspicion.

During this time, Loya realizes he's starting to go mad, and he realizes he has to change. He looks back on this time as a period of transformation. Ironically, Loya never speculates on the injustice that sent him to solitary confinement for such a long period of time. In essence, he was punished for a crime he never committed, with no restitution available or even considered.

After awhile the investigation gets dropped and Loya gets returned first to the general population, then to a pre-release setting with lower security. And he's incredibly lucky to have his brother and other family members waiting on the outside. His brother helps him find low-level work till he can begin his writing and performing career.

This book is powerful as a story of a life that defies stereotypes. Loya's background combines his Hispanic heritage, his father's love of learning, his own academic achievement, the fundamentalist church that could be stifling as well as protective, and a whole lot more.

Loya's father was never punished for his abusive behavior. In retrospect, the children should have been removed from the father's custody, although the other relatives weren't especially suited to raising a bright child. Loya's grandmother couldn't read, and he vividly remembers being angry when she lied about it.

But jailing the father wouldn't have helped anybody in this family. Ironically, prison freed Joe Loya, who paid for his father's mistakes along with his own.

At his reading, Loya said most people who are in prison don't belong there: they're not harmful and we're wasting resources. He also said that he's estranged from his father, who didn't like the way he was portrayed in the book.

Joe Loya is an articulate, courageous man, who's finally found a way to make a contribution. I'm looking forward to his next book, which will be about his life after prison. And I wish we as a society would learn more from books like this one.