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Beginning within the hallowed halls of a convent school as a young boy, Jack Black recounts his gradual journey towards a life of crime and his adventures within the lawless underworld as a professional thief, hobo, and member of the notorious “yegg” safecracking brotherhood in the American and Canadian West between the 1880s and 1920s.
After its initial appearance as a popular series of articles in the San Francisco Call newspaper, You Can’t Win was reissued as a standalone book in 1926 and quickly became a critically acclaimed bestseller that had to be reprinted five times in order to satisfy the initial demand. Black’s gritty portrayal of life “on the road” and inside account of the criminal justice system helped inspire Beat Generation writers like William S. Burroughs, and played an influential role in prison reform efforts long after its publication.
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Subjects
Biography, Criminals, junkie, memoir, naked lunch, underground history, william burroughs, Thieves, Crime and criminals, Long Now Manual for Civilization, Criminals, united states, Criminals, biography, Criminals, canada, Canada, biography, United states, biography, Black jack, 1871-1897, Autobiography, Escapes, Ex-convicts, Jewel thieves, Prison reform, Prison violence, Rogues and vagabondsPeople
Jack Black, William BurroughsPlaces
Canada, San Francisco, The Wild West, United StatesTimes
1875-1930Showing 2 featured editions. View all 25 editions?
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William Burroughs, at the age of 13, was inspired by this book, as he mentions in a preface to Naked Lunch. You Can't Win is a memoir that explodes our ideas about the supposedly lawful past; Jack was a drifter, robber, junkie, and hustler that survived from the frontier times til the depression era...apparently. He became a librarian of sorts, wrote his memoir, and then vanished...
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June 18, 2024 | Edited by kathrinpassig | Merge works |
June 10, 2024 | Created by ImportBot | Imported from standard_ebooks:jack-black record |