ABSTRACT
In December 1990 I received a narrative from Miguel. He was writing from Attica, one of New York States fiercest and most remote maximum-security prisons. For the past sixteen months he had been confined to a SHU, a Special Housing Unit— in prison parlance "the box" or "solitary"—designed for the most violent inmates. He lived in a small cell, unable to communicate with anyone except the guards, confined twenty-three hours a day with one hour for exercise, in a small, also isolated yard. He wrote out of extreme loneliness, rethinking and reconstructing his life story, in order to attempt to give continuing meaning to his life, He had said he wanted to send me something for Christmas, but was also cut off from the privilege of commissary shopping, so I had suggested he write his story for my book. I was hoping that it would help him retain his sanity. The spelling, punctuation, and spacing are retained exactly as they were in the original handwritten letter.
