Hole in My Life
Gantos, J.
2004
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Age Range: 14+
Genre: Biography, Printz Honor Book, Robert F. Sibert Honor Book
Rating: 4.5/5



A really poor choice in late adolescence ripples through the rest of Jack Gantos' life; his decision to transport drugs for $10 000 in 1971 turns into a six year prison sentence that changes, well, everything.

Raw, candid, passionate, direct, funny and true in the way that only certain humans can be, Gantos writes of his past with none of the sickly sweet metaphors or annoying slap-you-in-the-face themes you'd expect from a memoir about drug trafficking and the ramifications of such activities. A book more about the function and beauty of writing, about finding your way in life, about screwing up and living to talk about how much it sucked and about how important the screw ups actually are to the development of your humanity. Gantos is stripped down, and writes beautifully about life, love, and most importantly, about writing. He talks about that feeling of having thoughts too big for your head, how strange it is to write in the same places his favourite writers once wrote, the importance of feeling your life, and how the path that leads you is sometimes misguided.

Make no mistake, this is a really good book. And has so much potential - not only for emphasizing multicultural materials, but also for encouraging teens to read biographies of people who aren't basketball stars, but who had to go through a whole lot of crap to get to where they are. And for a real-life, no-shit account of how the stuff that seems OK can really, really go bad. A lot of kids need to see this side of the story; not the glamorized drug lifestyle, and not the hard-hitting family living class textbook. But the stories of folks like Jack Gantos, who made wrong choices, paid for their mistakes, actually did come out learning a lesson, and have talent enough to write about it. No apologies, no crap, just you and Jack. It seriously feels like sitting down and talking to this guy. This guy who knows more than you, and who wants you to take whatever you will from his experiences. This guy who I would love to meet and talk with about Kerouac and Hemingway's house and, well, everything!