Hole in My Life

by Jack Gantos

Book Overview

Becoming a writer the hard way

In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374399883
• ISBN13: 9780374399887
• Release Date: March 2002
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Byr)
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.0"
• Age Range: 14 to 18 years
• Grade Range: Grade 9 to Postsecondary

Customer Reviews

Great read!

This is one of the many young adult books I have read as an adult that I loved and would recommend to people of any age. A brilliant book, I won's give you a summary, but this is a great inspiring story, that Jack Gantos tells beautifully.

A CANDID STORY

Popular children's book author and National Book Award finalist, Jack Gantos, now offers a compelling story taken from his own life. It is appropriate that we should hear this in his voice. Some thirty years ago Gantos dreamed of becoming a writer - a dream that seemed far-fetched as he was cash poor and a drone in a job that was going nowhere. Quite foolishly the young man made a grab for ten thousand dollars by helping to sail a hashish bearing ship from the Virgin Islands to New York City. Once there, he and his pals sold the drug until they were caught. End result? The young Gantos was sentenced to up to six years in jail. Yet from what was probably the lowest point in his life the author was able to more than salvage himself; he was almost reborn. Once confined in a cell he made his dream of becoming a writer a reality as he toiled with paper and pen. There's much for young people to learn from Gantos's story, and accolades are deserved for his candid telling. - Gail Cooke

hungry writer takes fork in road

All writers have pasts, before they write the books for which they become known & respected. Before Jack Gantos wrote his children's books (which, by the way, are brilliant, energetic & absorbing reads!) he had to get some experience in living.Not many of us would have chosen the fork in the road which Jack Gantos took, faced with a desperate need for cash for college where he hoped to become "a writer." As a naive smuggler, his career didn't last long. It is, however, out of that struggle & ultimate confinement in prison, that the writer I so enjoy, grew, with his unique, taut & restless language.A super memoir of a youth well spent on ill-gotten gains. Of the chances he got to take other forks in the road on his way to redemption. He paid his dues, did his work, & then got on with his life as a writer.

Not Just For Teenagers

I just finished Hole in My Life and found it so compelling I devoured it! I am a 7th grade English teacher who tries to keep up on the latest juvenile literaure , but I am also the parent of a teengage boy who spent time in a juvenile facility for drugs. I love memoirs, but especially stories of redemption...stories with hope for the future... that give me hope as a parent...and this book was all that and more. Although teenagers will find this scary and harrowing story fascinating, adults will also appreciate his writing and the honesty with which he tells his story.I can't commend Jack Gantos enough for this book!

Jack in Trouble

I first need to confess that I know Jack Gantos and have been a fan of his writing for more than 20 years. This made it particularly difficult to read a book about a painful period in his life. However, this is Jack's best writing and is a story that many teenagers (who believe themselves to be invincible) need to read. It is also first and foremost a compelling story that will be hard for anyone to stop reading. Even knowing that all ends well (Jack is an award-winning, highly successful writer), the suspense remains high. It is a harsh tale, and the descriptions of prison life are brutal (as they should be) but ultimately it is a story of a life redeemed. Highly recommended!

A riveting, compelling read.

I am a children's librarian who read this book and could hardly put it down. I read my (non children's librarian) husband a couple of paragraphs, and he grabbed it the second I was done. He inhaled it and gave it to his best friend, who does not read children's books. The best friend loved it and cannot understand why it is called a young adult novel. He thinks it is great reading for everyone!A wonderful read by an intriguing, and obviously stubborn and incredibly gifted human being.