Iron House: Stories from the Yard

A vivid account of life behind bars, the prisoners and those who guard them, this collection of impressions, some as brief as a sentence, is searing. Washington was imprisoned-we're not told why-from 1972 to 1989, part of that time at Attica, New York's maximum-security prison, and met con artists, sex addicts, psychotics and dreamers. There are Jomo, who taught him how to escape without leaving the walls; Little Black, who turned a can of tuna into a banquet; and Julio, who smiled as a gang of guards beat him to death. Washington sees most of the warders as small-souled and brutal, yet as much imprisoned as those they guard. On his release, he finds the outside world paranoid, populated by prisoners of their own desperation. (Oct.)