- Biography, Criminals, junkie, memoir
William Burroughs, at the age of 13, was inspired by this book, as he mentions in a preface to Naked Lunch. You Can't Win is a memoir that explodes our ideas about the supposedly lawful past; Jack was a drifter, robber, junkie, and hustler that survived from the frontier times til the depression era...apparently. He became a librarian of sorts, wrote his memoir, and then vanished...
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Character
Grave, classical in form, earnest and bleak.
- gravecomic
- classical in formformally daring
- earnestironic
- warmbleak
- rawmeticulous
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About the book
- Author
- Jack Black
- First published
- 1926
- Pages
- 394
- Publisher
- Omniun Pub, Dover Publications, www.bnpublishing.com
- Editions
- 25
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9781627932752
Where to read
Libraries first: a card gets you most books for nothing. Each opens that service’s page for this title.
On Open Library, 5 have read it and 47 want to.
Jack Black was a late 19th century/early 20th century hobo and professional burglar, living out the dying age of the Wild West. He wrote You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926) a memoir describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure (even his actual name is uncertain) who is recognized through association with William S. Burroughs. Although his philosophy on life was especially influential to Burroughs, who associated with similar characters i
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