Gantos, Jack. 2004. A HOLE IN MY LIFE. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 0374430896
“[I] began to write more stories about my childhood, like the ones I has started writing down in prison-stories which at one time I did not think were important, but suddenly had become to me the most important stories of all. They contained the hidden days of my innocence and happiness.” (p. 199).
Bored with life and not wanting to accompany the rest of his family to the Virgin Islands, teenage Jack Gantos stays behind in the United States where he works a few odd jobs and lives in a few even odder places. Determined to become a writer, Jack decides to take a road trip; but when a friend takes off with all his savings, he is forced to finally cross the Caribbean and work with his father packing crates for white families fleeing the racial tension running rampant through the Virgin Islands. Desperate to get back home to the States, Jack accepts a job from a drug smuggler and knowingly helps a sail a boat full of drugs into New York. Upon arriving in New York, Gantos is arrested and sentenced to several years in a minimum security prison.
In A HOLE IN MY LIFE author Jack Gantos relays the personal triumphs and failures of his youth in this autobiography. His “character”, a younger version of himself, is a very realistic portrayal of a teenager trying to find himself in the world; a feeling that young and old alike can relate to. “Knowing that the narrator is destined to land in jail keeps the suspense at a high pitch, but this book’s remarkable achievement is the multiple points of view that emerge, as experiences force a fledgling writer to continually revise his perspective of himself and the world around him.” Heppermann, 2002). Anyone who reads this book will walk away reminiscing about the little things in life that make it worthwhile.
Young adult readers will easily understand that laid-back tone and ordinary vocabulary used throughout A HOLE IN MY LIFE. The theme of the story, self-discovery, is one that resonates with the teenage audience, as most young adults are in the midst of the same quest. Gantos takes on life in a no-holds-barred style of writing, while leaving the quality of the work intact, and readers will relate to his style. “He uses the same bold honesty found in his fiction to offer a riveting autobiographical account of his teen years- and the events may well penetrate the comfrt zone of even the most complacent young adults.” (Heppermann, 2002). The wild adventures and immature antics leading up to his arrest will entertain readers and draw them in so that they are ready when hit with the brutal facts of prison life.
While the material in A HOLE IN MY LIFE is well organized, Gantos does have a tendency to ramble in places. There are times when the reader must hang in through many pages of personal reflection before gettingback to the heart of the story. The use of minimal visuals also plays a key role in the book. The cover uses Gantos’ own mug shot from his arrest and the photograph is shown on the introductory pages. This addition to the story does not go unnoticed by readers, as they try to connect the now mature and sensitive writer to his criminal past.
References:
Heppermann, Christine M. 2002. "Hole in My Life." Horn Book Magazine 78, no. 3: 345. Education Research Complete, EBSCOhost (accessed November 21, 2011).
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