Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
One of the earliest versions of my memoir wasn't interested in chronology as much as psychology. I was trying to capture the state of mind that preceded my downfall rather than recount the events themselves. Reading it now, I recognize both its limitations and its urgency.
BEFORE THE FALL
I loved my life.
Our converted carriage house in that pristine village of ours. The greenery of our backyard out the bay window in our bedroom or some other color of another season’s magic when all of them were beautiful in their own way because our life was beautiful and only me to ruin it which I knew I was capable of but convinced myself that that was past and I was a changed man and of course I was because everyone was telling me that I was, in fact, I was now a seer and becoming a legend and failure only a ghost I had overcome, and of course I believed it.
So we went on that way for years, decades even while the creeping conundrum festered opaquely and I purchased one new beautiful property after another so that the next one saved the other one and if that one didn’t then we could find another one that did until we had all of these beautiful properties that looked like a mini empire but were not an empire but together they hid the flaws because they were the opposite of the sum is more than their parts because the sum was less than the parts but I went on purchasing until there was no more purchasing to be done and my time was up and everybody fell with me which is the worst part about all the purchasing because the more of it you do then there are more people that go down with you and it is them that haunts you because the web of them is so much more than you can stand, so much more that the only way to survive it is to become vacuous and delusional which is what Bill said I was and maybe he was right and when I finally realized that the sky was falling and the world was starting to figure it out and pursued me day and night, it was my office that became a haven, especially in the early mornings when it was quiet and I was alone and no calls coming and no one else in the building except the solo guard at reception who always greeted me with a warm smile and acknowledging me in that way that made me feel like all was well and I was going to figure it all out because I’m a kind boss and a good man or at least he seemed to think so and at least made me believe that he felt that which is just as good after a night of nightmares or wakeful lying in bed planning and plotting exits and tactics and outcomes and saving graces and last-minute turnarounds and replaying turning points as if there are any or do they go back so far that there were no turning points because they were just events leading up to the inevitable failure that was always there inside me and all of it was just forestalling and foreboding.
This excerpt is from one of the earliest versions of my memoir. During a writing workshop I took with Tom Jenks, one of the country’s most respected editors and the author of The Poetics of Fiction, he told me there was “a lot of good writing in the manuscript.” But he also believed it lacked the coherent narrative structure needed to sustain a book. His suggestion was to use this manuscript as source material for a longer, traditionally structured memoir. That advice ultimately formed the basis for A Prison of My Own, the memoir my agent is currently submitting to publishers.
Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.
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