Norman Mailer, Prisons and Me

I first read, In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Abbott when I was spending a year as a reporter inside a maximum security penitentiary doing research for my book, The Hot House: Life Inside Leaven worth Prison. If you are not familiar with the Beast book or Abbott’s story, here’s a brief review. 
The son of an Irish-American solider and Chinese prostitute, Abbott had spent nearly all of his life in jails and prisons. In 1977, he learned that Normal Mailer was writing a book about Gary Gilmore, the first prisoner to be executed in 1977 after our nation re-started the death penalty ending its short constitutional hiatus.
Mailer’s book about Gilmore, The Executioner’s Song, won the Pulitzer Prize and helped revive his career.