What do You think about Hole In My Life (2004)?
“I stood up and went downstairs. But I didn’t sleep. Hamilton had read my mind – I’m not doing anything wrong. I’m just afraid of the punishment.”17-year-old Jack Gantos wants to be a writer. However, he’s a little confused as how to go about really becoming one. He spends a lot of time drinking himself into a stupor, smoking pot, working, and cruising around in his car. When he realizes he has no way to afford the cost of college, he moves out to St. Croix to help his father with the family construction business. However racial tension has cast a social and economic cloud over the island. When he is offered an opportunity to help smuggle a boat-load of hash to New York for 10.000 dollars, he jumps at the opportunity. But the plan doesn't work out as swimmingly as he'd hoped. When his indiscretions land him in prison, Jack is forced to think about the man he really wants to become. Ultimately, this aspiring writer manages to find creative ways of pursuing his dreams under the most challenging of circumstances. Beautifully,honestly, and accessibly written, Hole in My Life is an inspirational autobiographical account of the real-life adolescent struggles of a successful children's author.
—Elaine Pelton
Jack Gantos's memoir, despite being promoted as the story of one big mistake is really an exploration of how a string of small mistakes can land you somewhere you never wanted to go. Gantos's downfall started with a seemingly innocent decision to accompany a friend to a party and smoke some weed. From there, Gantos makes a string of increasingly foolish decisions, spurred on by "friends" who aren't really friends at all, and unchecked by his parents, who are largely absent from the narrative. With the first page, you know where Jack is going to end up, but it takes most of the book to get him to that point, where he realizes that he has made a mistake, lumping all his smaller mistakes into the one big one, taking a job smuggling hash into New York. When Gantos ends up in prison, it isn't a surprise, but his reaction is a pleasant one. Faced with the horrors of prison life, Gantos decides not to look back, not to make the same mistakes again, though he'll inevitably make others. And that is where this book gets its value. It would be a mistake to hand this book to a young teen, and even older teens may need guidance to deal with some of the more difficult aspects, but in the end, Gantos's experience brought him to the realization that drugs are not a valid life choice. Some may find fault with the reasoning he employs, or even question the reliablity of the narrator, but the sweep of the narrative leads the reader to a good place in the end.
—Alex
I met Jack Gantos back in the early to mid '90's when he was an instructor in Emerson College's MFA program. He stood out from the pack. For starters, he was (and judging by his videos today, still is) a snappy dresser, a notable departure from the running-shoe and tired jeans look favored by many writers. His advice was uncommonly practical, with an emphasis on story structure that has proven very useful. And above all, there was his manner: unassuming, yet compelling; witty, but never deprecating. There were rumors about Jack having done time in jail, something related to drugs, that seemed absurd, so completely out of place with his character. I dismissed the rumors as the usual student body bullshit. Then I discovered this amazing memoir: yeah, Jack was involved in a drug deal, shuttling 500 pounds of hash from St. Croix to Manhattan. And the venture, not surprisingly, did not go well: Jack ended up in jail for about a year, the "hole" in his life. I love this book, not just because the core story is genuinely remarkable, but because Jack tells it with perfect pitch. He neither moralizes nor excuses; he's forgiving of his younger self without ever indulging him. By the end of the book, it's clear that this isn't some "misery memoir," but the story of a young writer finding a resolve and a voice he hadn't known before. When I finished "Hole in My Life," there was a little one in mine because I missed the narrator so much. I recommend the book to anyone 14 and up.
—Jonathan Kranz
