In Thatcher's Britain, barely out of his teens, highly intelligent but illiterate, Simon Austen is sent down for life. Charming, damaged, brutal, manipulative, Simon is a riddle no one can crack. He did it but he doesn't know why - or maybe doesn't want to know why. Or both ...

Simon Austen has the names people have called him tattooed all over his body. Dumb Cunt. Waste of Space. A Threat to Women. Murderer. Simon Austen has strangled his girlfriend. For the next thirteen years, Simon Austen will be serving life. Barely out of his teens, his past a grim assembly of foster homes, Simon is cagey, reserved, and highly intelligent. He's been told he has trouble relating to women. But what kind of woman would want to relate to him? Determined to resolve his issues on his own terms, and at great personal risk, Simon begins writing illicit letters to women under assumed identities. And though short-lived, his letter-writing triggers a terrifying process of self-reconstruction. Who is Simon Austen, he is forced to ask, and who do his psychiatrists want him to become? A jolting portrait of modern prison regimes, Alphabet is the story of a man's uncertain and often-harrowing journey towards rehabilitation. -- Back cover.