Publisher's Synopsis
This book is a collection of stories, rants and commentary of my first person experiences while spending eight years and six months in a North Florida prison. ENDORSEMENTS: ... another Catholic voice emerges under the pseudonym Gano Rinehart from a men's prison in Sanderson, Florida. . .. A must-read collection for those who want to glimpse . . . the dark night of incarceration. - Rose Marie Berger, senior associate editor and poetry editor, Sojourners magazine, Washington, D.C. During his eight years of confinement in Florida, Gano Rinehart took what solace he could from his poetry and his journals. As Poetry Editor for America magazine, I was happy to accept two of his poems and to encourage him. What we are blessed to have here are his journals. They contain the unvarnished record of those cloudy years, but above all they let us know of his increasing faith. Under these dark skies it really helped him see. ... I just had to read it through to the end. It makes compelling reading. Fr. James Torres, S. J., America magazine I've known the author, using the pen name Gano Rinehart, since 2003 when I met him in Baker Correctional Institution (Sanderson Florida) where I was a KAIROS volunteer and where I also regularly celebrated Mass and heard confessions. These stories are powerful, vivid and honest . . .. The Most Reverend John J. Snyder, Former Bishop of Saint Augustine, Florida. Every story or narrative within this manuscript is accurately recorded. Every person described is an actual person. Most of the conversations within the stories are verbatim, and those which are not are nevertheless, honest paraphrasing. I wrote out thousands of pages in longhand while I was doing time. The majority of the stories offered up here were recorded within hours of the events. The few that were not were written down within a day or two of the event. Many of these chapters were published as stand alone articles in newspapers and magazines. Many of the stories have a decidedly spiritual slant. Everybody does time by their own choosing. I chose silence, meditation, contemplation, prayer, study reading and the Catholic faith.
