Guarded Moments

By William J. Sunke

Book Overview

HE SENTENCED HIMSELF TO PRISON
AS A CORRECTIONAL OFFICER

The harrowing journey of a boy raised by a brutal criminal father who sentenced himself to prison as a correctional officer rather than be sent there as an inmate.

Guarded Moments is an unblinking descent into the solitary confinement of one man's heart Seeing the terror in the eyes of a child visiting his father at San Quentin, the correctional officer finally breaks through the prisons inside him. Walls come tumbling down.

Guarded Moments is one man's key to the freedom of himself.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595415571
• ISBN13: 9780595415571
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Real Guard

This book was given to me by a good friend. While the slightly cheesy cover gave me pause about the inside, my friend wouldn't give me a book for no reason. I found the story inside compelling, an account of a San Quentin Prison guard who not only has to be vigilant for inmate shanks in his back, but also the psychological shanks thrust at him by fellow guards, the administration, and his criminal father. Author William Sunke himself had been a correctional officer at San Quentin, so this has a strong sense of truth. It's also a touching and sensitive tale of a guy trying to find his place in life. If you want a real insider's view of prison life, this is the place. Sunke has an incredible eye for detail and a good ear for dialogue.

Chillingly Real

A unique look inside one of the country's most famous prisons. You know, without the Hollywood or literary embellishment, that this is the real thing. Having read 'Guarded Moments' back-to-back with Grisham's latest documentary, 'The Innocent Man', I have a fresh insight into the criminal justice and prison system. An excellent and totally honest read.

Authentic Encounter.

Forget the movies you've seen and the other "prison" books you've read, William Sunke's GUARDED MOMENTS is the real thing. The Woolf clan depicted here is an aggressively disfunctional family functioning on eight, high-compression cylinders with powerful emotions stemming from uncontrollable anger and consuming misery. Sunke takes us inside the walls of San Quentin, an aging prison that can explode with terror any moment. As we accompany him, a guard walking the tiers, we can smell the danger and hear the dark whispers of fear and loathing and sense the angry pulse of segregated prisoner gangs. The authenticity peaks as violence breaks out at an understaffed hospital ward on Christmas Eve and the horror expands to Stephen King proportions. You may want to stop reading, but you won't. Despite lonliness and fear, a busted-up marriage and multiple family fractures, Sunke's heroic central figures manages a small light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Not a book for sissies.

Unique contribution to prison literature

William J. Sunke's Guarded Moments is one of the most captivating, relentlessly gripping books I have read. Whenever I set the manuscript down, the story and narrative voice called me back, and whenever I was not reading it I was thinking about it. In this harrowing tale, the human(e) and the inhuman(e) mingle in fascinating and disturbing ways. This is a work of searing emotion and self-lacerating honesty couched in an eye-opening tour of Inferno, ultimately leading to personal redemption (if not to Paradiso). It is not uncommon for prison narratives to follow this arc; narratives of captivity and imprisonment conventionally track the liberation, both physical and intellectual, of the dehumanized protagonist, from Mary Rowlandson, Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X in their autobiographies to Edward Bunker's No Beast So Fierce (the basis for the film Straight Time) and Nathan Heard's House of Slammers. All of these, however, relate the experience of captivity or imprisonment from the point of view of the slave, captive, or inmate. To my knowledge, Guarded Moments occupies a unique place in the annals not just of prison literature, but of all literature. In presenting this subject matter from the point of view of a guard -- and a guard who recognizes that he well could have ended up on the other side of the cell door -- Sunke's story carves out an important place all to itself. In a country that incarcerates a higher percentage of its populace than any other nation, understanding the prison experience is essential for all citizens. Guarded Moments is indispensable for providing that understanding. As far as I know, there is nothing else of its kind. Sunke's intense, painful emotional reflections provide the human heart at the center of a frequently inhuman world. As Sunke tells his story, every chapter brims with original metaphors of astounding inventiveness and freshness. In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I am indirectly acquainted with Sunke, as we have a mutual friend, and that I had the opportunity to read this work in manuscript form. It is even more impressive in its present state than it was in draft form.

San Quentin Sanguine

Having literally spent time on the other side of the bars from Mr. Sunke, I can appreciate his perspective of the life of a guard juxtaposed with that of a convict. He offers a somewhat overly heroic perspective, but perhaps documents the correction's officer perspective. The novel offers the lay person an opportunity to see behind the walls into the complex bureaucracy of the California Department of Corrections at the level of the foot soldier. The writing shows a unique talent for the emotional trauma of childhood and the complexity of familial connections and creates a compelling story of a man surviving a complex evolution from child to man to career with the CDC and beyond.