prison riot. McCormick wrote to me, “Can you believe this shit! | wonder how much we pay the guy/girl who actually sits and reads every book that comes in for offending passages. How about you tear out pages 259-261 and re-send this book back with a copy of the rejection and a notation that the offending pages have been removed.”
Which is exactly what | did. This time, though, my cover letter to the warden was ignored, and the book was returned, stamped
“Unauthorized.” _| had called their bluff. Obviously, McCormick was being punished simply because he could be. | then corresponded with several prison correspondents around the country to find out what inmates had not been allowed to read. | wanted to see other examples of arbitrary and frivolous censorship by prison personnel. Here are some results of my informal survey:
* "The Texas Department of Corrections blocked Bo Lozoff' s Breaking Out of Jail, a book about teaching meditation to prison inmates.”
* "Disallowed: 7rainspotting because of its ‘glorification of drug use.’ Tom Robbins’ Sti// Life With Woodpecker because it has a chapter
that ‘contains information about bombmaking.’ ”
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