Cool Hand Luke: A Novel

This "impressive" novel is the basis of the classic Paul Newman movie (New York Times).

Out of his experiences working on a chain gang, Donn Pearce created Cool Hand Luke, the larger-than-life war hero—Good Guy Number One—turned drunkard, vandal, and convict. A blasphemer and "pretty evil feller" who "could work the hardest, eat the mostest, and tell the biggest lies." Luke's outsized feats of gambling and gluttony—he bets Society Red, a college man from Boston, that he can eat fifty eggs—a...