ROAR Notes Hole in My Life

Bibliographic Information:

Title: Hole In My Life

Author: Jack Gantos

Published: March 26th, 2002

Genre: Autobiography

Roar Notes

Summary: In the novel of Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos, is the autobiography about the decisions that he made leading up to his imprisonment.  Jack Gantos went to jail in 1971 in the Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Kentucky. Gantos says that inmates fear of one another, and that he is constantly followed by the brutality and idea of violence.  He wanted to look tougher in order to keep attention away from him. Gantos dad is able to identify criminals around time, and in prison was when Gantos realized that he needed to change the perception of being a criminal himself. Before jail Gantos lived in a home where he did not feel comfortable which in the long run his move to St. Croix. In St. Croix drugs were found easily, and were part of everyday life. Gaston met a guy named Rik made a deal to take hash to New York in exchange of 10 thousand dollars. Gaston accepted without thinking twice, and promises not to tell anyone. Taking the job, he was to sail for a guy named Hamilton for a couple of weeks. They had a rough start when Hamilton threw away all of Jack’s identification in his wallet. By getting rid of identification, Hamilton will no longer have fear of getting caught. Hamilton and Jack started to load off the hash, and began to sell it in the streets. The FBI had come to Chelsea hotel, when Jack realizes they took Hamilton, he panics and runs for the front entrance. Jack has a lawyer named Mr. Newman and is told that Rik is the one that snitched and purposely presented evidence of the crime. Jack realized that he not only screwed up his life, but the life of others. Gantos was now in court and on his first night in jail a guy had told him that his a** had tax and that he needed to pay up. Jack didn’t feel safe to go to lunch; while everybody else was not there he went to the bathroom and found that Lucas was raped. Jack got lice in his hair so he took a shower, and they transferred him to a yellow cell, which he didn’t enjoy. I brought him different emotions, compared to the day, rainy and moody. At the same time he liked it because it was all to himself, had safety, and comfort. Jack never expected visitors, but one day he got a visit from his dad and Uncle Jim. They came drunk, and at wrong visiting hours. His dad didn’t really give one on one attention to Jack, which got him mad. He understood that his dad was affected by his son being in jail. Gantos began to realize that now he had a purpose and a reason to write about. The jail gave him two conditions in order for him to be released from Jail which was to find a job and somewhere to live. Jack found a solution for both requirements. Eventually he signed up for college and got accepted to make his dreams come true, to write.

Quote: Similie: “Brown marks appeared as it were rotten fruit” (Gantos 132).

Reaction: In this sentence, Jack Gantos uses comparison of his face to a rotten fruit. Once again we see humor implied by using everyday things or in this case food. After being caught, his stress level increased, which is why he regularly messed with his face. Gantos took out his anger or different emotions, on his face, resulting in looking like a rotten fruit. Often rotten is something that is getting worse from decay, in Gantos case, he was picking on his face. Overall the way I feel, is that he uses positive connotations, to cover up something that is not very pleasant.