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The first part of the book provides enough
background on Prince to realise he is a typical Australian teenager,
indestructible, carefree, hopelessly irresponsible and a bit of a smart
arse. We also discover something somewhat incongruous for someone who is
about to commit a crime of this dimension, he comes from a stable, happy,
supportive, loving middle class family. This early part also
describes the preparation an execution of the badly bungled crime - an armed
bank robbery.
The remainder and larger part of the book deals
with his trial and incarceration in several different prisons across the USA. He
quickly realises that this is no bed-of-roses and where his self assured
cockiness will be more liability than asset.
Whereas, the first part of the book has a
narrative and tells a story, the second part appears to be more a series of
vignettes of cherry-picked episodes in Prince's 54 months of prison life.
Although, he describes some of the bleak and dark moments of his life,
especially when he spends time in solitary confinement, all too often these
episodes are quickly countered with humourous stories told in a tongue-in-cheek
way.
One of the real messages in his story recalls for
me the line in the song, Big Yellow Taxi, ".. you don't know what you
got till it's gone ..". Prince, like many teenagers who are coasting rudderless
through life, don't realise what they have until it's taken away from them. In
Prince's case it wasn't the material but the emotional connections with friends
and family and the pain and suffering he was causing to so many people by his
couple of minutes of madness.
In some ways this is a self-help book
[without taking the analogy too far] for young people who want everything now
and who are willing to do just about anything to get it but without any regard
for the consequences, which, in Prince's case, was a large chunk of his early
adult life life spent in prison and a criminal record which will shadow him for
the rest of his life.
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