Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Joe Loya's book traces how a Bible-thumpin' evangelical kid grows up to be a violent thug, narrating the twists and turns in his life and in his psyche.

This is the most complete and intelligent story of a descent into criminality that I have ever read. Loya is hyper aware of the factors that drove him to choose crime as a career path and elucidates this mentality for the armchair reader. It's all here - from the sprawling Mexican barrios of East LA to the nifty get aways and the high life to the years spent in the bowels of a prison.

Loya is a highly entertaining writer and I found myself laughing loudly on several occaisions.

Ultimately, this is a story of survival and redemption....I look forward to a sequel, if there is any...to see how Loya's life ultimately turned out.

We've all read stories of bad-guy-turns-good-in-prison, usually after some religious conversion in jail. While such happy endings feel good, one is rarely completely convinced of an essential change in the character of the convert; if circumstances change, we can easily imagine the person reverting back to his former ways. Not so with Joe Loya. HIs memoir digs so deeply into the dark parts of his soul -- in the least flattering ways possible -- we know instinctively that this is someone who knows himself completely. His redemptive turn in prison is the real thing. Indelible and moving. (And with some great bank robbing stories to boot.)

I love this book because it could be so many people's story. It shows Joe's journey from the pain and confusion and grief of losing his mother, to the confusion and eventual rage when his father turned his own anger, grief and rage against him to the decision to take control of his life. Once he chose to take control, the survivor in him again helped him find a mentor and role model in Rodriguez. Joe had used his inherent love of the power of words from childhood. Now he chose to harness that love for transformation. I am so pleased and grateful that he chose to share his story of redemption with us. May some lonely, confused angry person in s prison cell somewhere, either literal or metaphorical,find this book. It can and has changed lives. Thank you, Joe.

Extremely well written. I will be certain to read Mr. Loya's next endeavor. I, personally would like to know how Loya's life evolved after his stint in prison. Cudo's to Loya for sharing his life with readers. It was a fascinating, heartbreaking and encouraging read!

Reading the book's jacket before ever cracking it open, I was struck by the notion that he apparently had written a hopeful book rather than some sort of sordid prison tale. He didn't disappoint. He expresses himself very well, much better than I could ever hope to do. I think that what struck me most is that every page was unemotional, even when he expressed great rage or despair. It was almost clinical language, devoid of emotion yet describing emotion very well. I'm not sure how best to characterize it. He did, however, lose me completely when he gave free rein to his poetic sense while writing prose. Some of what he wrote was a collection of familiar English words which make absolutely no sense when strung together in the sentences which he composed. Fortunately, those passages are few and far between, and it's likely that most other readers won't have the trouble with those passages as I did.

As I proof read this, the thought struck me that this story is similar to Eldridge Cleaver's Soul On Ice. I can't remember much about that book, having read it when I was a teenager a long, long time ..... uh ... I mean a few years ago.

It's a good read. I recommend it.

reading this memoir i was struck by the honesty: the author doesn't sugar coat anything: neither his terrible behavior, nor the difficulty of the path back. an impressive work--not only for the story it tells, but also for the artful way in which it is written.

It's really tough to believe the tall tales in this book. Joe Loya is to honesty what Dean Martin is to sobriety. This book really only deserves one star or less but other reviews for this book giving it only one star have been removed by Amazon.com. Joe Loya probably complained like a little girl to have unflattering reviews removed. So much for the fight against censorship. I guess freedom of speech is ok as long as no one's feelings get hurt. Hopefully my rating of 5 stars will inspire the censors to allow this harmless little fuzzball to voice his opinion like everyone else.