You Can't Win

You Can't Win is the utterly compelling autobiography of Jack Black, a thief and a hobo who grew up in the late 1800s and early 1900s. I've never read a better book about the criminal underclass. Black's unsentimental writing style is superb. His descriptions of how he cracked safes, sneaked into houses to steal money from under the pillows of snoring victims, and survived miserable prison experiences had me turning the pages wide-eyed in bed at 2 a.m.Black never tries to make you feel sorry for him, and he greatly regrets his crimes (in his later years he became the librarian for a San Francisco newspaper), but you get the sense he enjoyed the thrills and risks of being a crook during the turn of the century. I felt kind of guilty for rooting him on as he broke all kinds of laws, but he's such a wonderful storyteller and a well-mannered crook I couldn't hellp myself.William Burroughs, who wrote the introduction to the latest edition, says You Can't Win is his favorite book. If you've read Junky, it's easy to see that Burrough's writing style was greatly influenced by Black's.

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