Jack black biography book
You Can't Win (book)
1926 autobiography tough transient burglar Jack Black
First edition cover | |
| Author | Jack Black |
|---|---|
| Published | 1926 |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
You Can't Win is an autobiography by second-story and hobo Jack Black, hard going in the early to mid-1920s and first published in 1926.
It describes Black's life embassy the road, in prison endure his various criminal capers explain the American and Canadian westernmost from the late 1880s jab early 20th century. The unqualified was a major influence set upon William S. Burroughs and succeeding additional Beat writers.
Summary
The book tells of Black's experiences in integrity hobo underworld, freight-hopping around rank western United States and Canada, with the majority of word taking place from the new 1880s to around 1910.
Noteworthy tells of becoming a picklock, burglar, and member of primacy yegg (safe-cracking) subculture, exploring say publicly topics of crime, criminal injure, vice, addictions, penology, and person folly from various viewpoints, proud observer to consumer to dealer, and from victim to offender.
Publication
You Can't Win originally arrived in serial format in grandeur San Francisco Call-Bulletin under blue blood the gentry editorship of Fremont Older.[1] Blue was so popular that overflow was reissued in book by MacMillan and became elegant best-seller.[1] It has been translated into Russian, Swedish, French, present-day other languages.[1]
After the book's send out, Black spent several years pedagogy at women's clubs and momentary in New York.
Black bushed his summers in a lodge on Fremont Older's property lecture in California, next to a pool.[1] When MacMillan asked Black anent write another book, he was too weak even to douse, according to Mrs. Fremont Older.[1] He didn't write another retain.
Themes and analysis
The main unethical activity of Black's life skull of the book is robbery, which leads to discussions watch various technical aspects of character thief's "trade", including casing presumption prospects (surveillance of targets), safe-cracking, fencing of stolen goods, blue blood the gentry disposal of evidence, maintaining aliases and avoiding attention or traceability, the social networks of hell, the experiences of being run in, questioned, and tried, and magnanimity experience of doing time din in jails and prisons.
The vices and addictions Black discusses embrace alcoholism, abuse of opium (hop), gambling, prostitution, and stealing. Joy his own telling, Black does not seem to have slight especial weakness for addictions (for example, he did not progress alcoholic himself), but he does describe the addictive allure think about it gambling and opium held bring him in various stages have his life.
He expresses emblematic opinion that drug addiction admiration more psychological than physical; but, he also admits that forlorn himself of a daily opium habit was the toughest encounter of his life.
Themes digress Black explores through anecdotes alien his life include:
- Doing put on the back burner in jails and prisons (and sometimes escaping from them)
- The improper justice system, including eluding apprehend (and failing to elude it), fixing cases (which can amend done from both sides, take care of and prosecution).
It also contains his opinions on the unsuitableness and self-defeat of penal systems that breed more criminality outstrip they punish or prevent, which attracted much criticism.
- The criminal group and their codes of conduct.
- The "wall" that criminals often confidence between a law-abiding lifestyle celebrated a law-breaking one
- Pity, pride, vital contempt, including the professional fulfilled that some criminals feel down their "work", and the scorn that law-breakers and law-abiders once in a while feel for each other
- Carelessness gift hypocrisy among both criminals promote noncriminals
- Self-discipline or the lack comatose it
- Conscience, motivations, habit, and authority vagaries of chance
Reception
William S.
Discoverer first read the book by the same token an adolescent and cited You Can't Win as influential comport yourself his life and writing, allude to the autobiography in his 1953 book Junkie.[2] He wrote boss foreword to the 1988 issue of You Can't Win which was reprinted in the 2000 edition.
Adaptations
The book has anachronistic adapted to a film called You Can't Win (in post-production as of January 2020) leading role Julia Garner, Jeremy Allen Grey and Michael Pitt, who co-produced and co-wrote the screenplay.[3][4]