Zek: An American Prison Story

Jonny is broken off, and doing time in an eastern Washington State Prison. He'll likely never see the outside world again. When Jonny is sent to the hole, he chances upon a deteriorating book. Intending at first to savor it, to read only a little at a time, he emerges a few short hours later, the book finished--And Jonny changed. Zek is his story, and it lays bare the brutality of a life spent behind bars. It is naked. It is ugly. And it is beautiful.

Arthur Longworth was born in Tacoma, Was...