Jimmy A. Lerner (1951–2008)

As a work of fiction, this book offers an alternately gripping, human, and humorous story about prison life by an inmate who supposedly was unfairly convicted of murder. As a work of non-fiction, however, this book is an outrageous and self- serving lie from start to finish. It has been exposed as such in the NY Times and elsewhere, by writers who looked into the details of Lerner's murder conviction and the prison where he was incarcerated.

Described events that can be independently confirmed never happened in the prison where Lerner served his time. For example, the book describes a heart-rending suicide by a young inmate that (according to the NY Times analysis) never happened. Likewise, inmates who served with Lerner have not corroborated his claims. But most outrageous is Lerner's self- serving assertion that he was falsely accused and imprisoned, because in his version, he only protected himself when attacked in a Nevada hotel room by a physically huge, drug- addicted, psychopathic pedophile who threatened his family. In reality, as police records showed, Lerner's victim was a man physically much smaller than himself, a salesman named Mark Slavin, who accompanied Lerner on a trip to gamble at the Las Vegas casinos. Further, Slavin had been beaten and suffocated to death, a plastic bag having been tied over his head with a belt. Does this sound like self - defense against a much more powerful man? Lerner never claimed this in court; in fact he pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to a 2-12 year sentence. Little wonder that the victim's relatives have sought to prevent Lerner from profitting from this book.

If public records and the NY Times report are accurate, the real monster in this account may be Lerner himself, who sought to profit from his horrific crime at the expense of the reputation of the man he so brutally slaughtered.

I would have given the book four stars had it been a true account, or even an entertaining fiction. But truth is supposed to count for something in autobiography, and on that basis, this book deserves no more than a star, if that.… (més)