“The mistake most cons make is to try and fight the pictures in their minds, to black them out with sleep. But that never works. It’s better to approach the problem from the opposite direction, to make the pictures even brighter, bring them into sharper focus, move around in them, stage manage them, make them work for you as an al¬ternative reality, tire out your mind by trying to make the unreal real and giving the shadows form.”
While Boldt is admittedly not the cream of Ted Lewis' career, Billy Rags ranks among his best work. Based in part in part on the diaries of real-life armed robber-turned journalist John McVicar, Billy Rags is a eye-opening portrait of life in a British maximum security prions as well as a moving portrait of one man's struggle for and with freedom. Bronson eat your heart out.
The literary quality of the book was such that its original publication in the US was by Harper's Magazine Press.
And today marks the first time either of these books have been available in eBook.