Jeffery Archer – A Prison Diary - Review

 

At the time Archer’s A Prison Diary topped the bestseller list in two countries, I had just begun teaching elementary school, and later high school and as many consummate reader’s understand one has a list of books to read, a backlog in a sense, and Archer, to my great loss wallowed somewhere at the bottom. Add a teacher’s schedule, and attempting to write a novel as well, as said, my loss. 'Diary' is an irresistible piece of literary work. A work that not only politicians should read, but the general public; gaining an insight into the prison system, which is, in most countries, vile, corrupt and sorely lacking.

Jeffery Archer was sentenced to a term of four years. (He was released in two.) The man’s crime: obstructing the course of justice and perjury. After reading this book, I researched his trial, and the whole situation, from start to finish, rang of bias and political subterfuge. Concerning this book, however, his “crime” and sentencing are irrelevant. Instead, the man’s experience in prison is the central subject of the book.

Archer is a man of wealth, an internationally renowned author, a member of the House of Lords, once a parliamentarian, a noted philanthropist, all that said and done; however, there is a bit of the scoundrel in his nature. (He did not go to jail as an innocent man.) Once again, this is all irrelevant to the books’ central premise or message. 

Jeffery Archer truly changed in prison.

Once arriving in a class “A” prison, a lock-up reserved only for hard-core criminals: killers, rapists, pedophiles, and drug dealers, this was a reality check for the author in the most merciless form. He spent a total of 22 days in Belmarsh Prison and learned the ropes of prison culture quickly. After just under three weeks in this ‘Hell”, Archer made a few meaningful friends, relationships that would change his life.

This diary immerses the reader inside the four walls of Archer’s prison cell. The one thing that maintains the man’s sanity is writing: two hours on, two hours off, and so on. This writer’s discipline in inspiring to say the least – now I understand why he has published so many books that have turned to best sellers.

Apart from some of the lost through extraordinary prison mates, he develops relationships within this short amount of time, more than anything else he writes about is his daily meals. Jeffery cannot bring himself to eat the prison food. He loses weight, however, compensates with bartering and guile. A quote that humbled me in a big way:

Back in my cell, I tuck into the other half of my tin of Prince’s Ham, two more McVitie’s digestive biscuits, and a mug of water, I try to convince me that Del Boy is the man, and he will deliver – in the nick of time – because there are only two inches left in the bottle. Have you ever had to measure how much water is left in a bottle?

Here is a successful man, a millionaire, one of the wealthy upper class, and ironically, because of life circumstances, reserves two inches of bottled water.

A good read.