One man's account of Alcatraz, a rare and intimate memoir of life inside the world's most notorious prison. THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLEREach day we saw the outside world in all its splendour, and each day that view served as a reminder that we had wasted and ruined our lives.Jim Quillen, AZ586 - a runaway, problem child and petty thief - was jailed several times before his twentieth birthday. In August 1942, after escaping from San Quentin, he was arrested on the run and sentenced to forty-five years in prison and later transferred to Alcatraz.From terrifying times in solitary confinement to daily encounters with 'the Birdman', and what really happened during the desperate and deadly 1946 escape attempt, this is the true story of life inside America's most notorious prison.
