The Potato Eater by Alison Leslie Gold
Padric McGarry was the surviving twin born in 1925 to the unwed 15-year-old daughter of Irish immigrants. Raped at the age of 7 by an older boy, he learned early during his Bronx childhood to use his wits and good looks to hustle and steal at every opportunity. He eventually did time in twenty prisons across the US, where McGarry improved his criminal skills and snatched moments of comfort with Miss Scarlet and other queens in the Homo Blocks. The Potato Eater is an unsentimental biography that offers a stark, unembroidered view of the intersection of gay and prison cultures. For this unapologetic and often darkly comical account of a rootless life at the bottom of the heap, award-winning author Alison Leslie Gold drew on interviews she made with McGarry in the 1970s, as well as his letters and his own notes. McGarry died, with two years of sobriety, in a halfway house in San Diego in 1982. From an audio tape made in 1977 in New York City: I was 16 when I was arrested for corrupting the morals of soldiers and sailors, blocking a public doorway, and disturbing the peace. In prison I began to grow up and learn. I learned how to pick pockets, how to open five kinds of safes, how to forge checks, how to work second story, how to boost. We'd practice there. I learned all the necessary things to spend 20 more years in different prisons. Riker's Island was my Junior High School. Sing Sing and Dannemora State were my High Schools. The chain gang and Leavenworth were my colleges. Immediately I had 'Homosexual, Degenerate, Cock Sucker' stamped on my records so I was rarely in population with the rest of the men. I was kept in segregation with junkie queens, wino queens, booster queens, prick peddlers, drag queens and some men who just preferred to be in the homo block where they were adored and given sexual comfort. Life in segregation with those mad sissies was like being caged with a mass of mad, screaming peacocks.Clairvoyant, The Imagined Life of Lucia Joyce, and other works by Alison Leslie Gold have been published. It was described by Jay Parini as a brilliantly written novel that daringly dances in the no-man's-land between biography and fiction. Another work, The Devil's Mistress: The Diary of Eva Braun, The Woman Who Lived and Died With Hitler, was described as impossible to forget by a New York Times reviewer: It's hard to forget a novel that spreads across the imagination like a mysterious and awful stain. This novel received a National Book Award nomination. Her nonfiction work on the Holocaust and WWII has gained particular praise.
Elie Wiesel is one among many who has singled her out as a Holocaust protector and recorder, saying of her, Let us give credit to Alison Gold. This poignant narrative, pulsing with humanity, would not have been written without her and her persuading gift, as well as her writer's talent. Memories of Anne Frank: Reflections of a Childhood Friend, written for young people about Hannah Lies Goslar, Anne Frank's best friend, and Anne Frank Remembered, The Tale of the Woman Who Helped to Hide Anne Frank, written with and about Miep Gies, who sheltered Anne Frank and saved Anne's diary. Both works have been translated into over twenty languages and are international best sellers.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781938371196 |
| ISBN 10 | 1938371194 |
| Title | The Potato Eater |
| Author | Alison Leslie Gold |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Tmi Publishing |
| Year published | 2015-06-26 |
| Number of pages | 178 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |