This is not a spine tingling account of an escape from Alcatraz. This is not what I expected, but since I like what it is, it was a pleasant alternative. I just wish that the book which went before was much more focused and far less frustrating.more I’m much more on the rehabilitation than punishment side of the penal debate, so I’m broadly in concord with the points the author makes in his conclusion – about how the sheer brutality of Alcatraz meant it failed as a prison. This history did however bring to the fore that there had been other escape attempts from Alcatraz which were at least as successful (two men sailing away in darkness on a self made craft and never seen again) or even more successful (man forging warden’s signature on release form and just waltzing off), which makes one wonder why this particular – probably failed – escape attempt was able to write itself into legend and receive (what’s supposed to be) it’s own book. It’s an adventure story which is all context and a taste of adventure at the end.
It’s like a meal which has an okay starter and a fine main course, but the starter is a huge soup bowl you can barely lift let alone finish, and the main course is over in three bites. These feel far more rambling, suffering from that lack of focus and subsequently only intermittently interesting. As good as the passage was though, it did leave this particular reader – who came in looking forward to hearing all about the escape – feeling a trifle short changed.īefore we get to the escape, we get a history of the prison and its various inmates and the exciting events which occasionally occurred.
They’re well written and gripping pages though, and by far the best passage in the book (even if they do fall into the trap of knowing what a man who didn’t write anything down and just disappeared into the night thought about the things he saw and experienced on his way out). Those events take up about sixty pages in the two hundred and thirty page length. But clearly there wasn’t enough material in the actual escape storyline to merit a whole book. They’re well written and gripping pages though, and by far the best passage in the book (even if they do fall into the trap of knowing what Obviously coming into a book called ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, one expects that most – if not all – of it will be about those guys who actually escaped from Alcatraz and how they did it. Obviously coming into a book called ‘Escape from Alcatraz’, one expects that most – if not all – of it will be about those guys who actually escaped from Alcatraz and how they did it. Discover the intriguing and absorbing saga of Alcatraz, whose name is still synonymous with punitive isolation and deprivation, where America’s most violent and notorious prisoners resided in tortuous proximity to one of the world’s favorite cities.The true-crime classic first published in 1963 is reissued in this special edition.Includes archival photos of the prison and prison life.This story will appeal to Bay Area locals and tourists alike.Alcatraz hosts more than a million visitors each year.more The chapters describing the daring escape attempts by Frank Morris and two accomplices from this “inescapable” prison became the basis for the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie. Campbell Bruce chronicles in spellbinding detail the Rock’s transition from a Spanish fort to the maximum-security penitentiary that housed such infamous inmates as Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman of Alcatraz, and mobster Al “Scarface” Capone. Campbell Bruce chronicles in spellbinding detail the Rock’s transition from a Spanish fort to the maximum-security penitentiary that housed such infamous inmates as Robert Stroud, aka the Birdman of Alcatraz, and In 1963, just weeks before the original publication of this book, the last prisoner was escorted off Devil’s Island and Alcatraz ceased to be a prison.
In 1963, just weeks before the original publication of this book, the last prisoner was escorted off Devil’s Island and Alcatraz ceased to be a prison.