"What you in for?"
"Comparing Eddie Bunker to Alexander Solzhenitsyn."
(Con whistles in admiration.)
Eddie Bunker was a rotten crook who pulled a bank job and got caught. Alexander Solzhenitsyn was locked up in a gulag under a despotic regime that didn't allow freedom of speech. (I'm generalising here, but stick with me, okay?) Bunker got his just desserts (some might say). Solzhenitsyn (again I'm generalising but) was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
You might also think that you have to buy into what is quickly developing into a culture of admiration for nasty ne'er-do-wells. People (and by people I mean: publishing executives, film moguls, idiots) like to romanticise the villain. Just watch "McVicar" or "The Krays" or even "Chopper" (which, credit where credit's due, is a great movie). Read any of the chancy memoirs written by the gallery of supposedly lovable rogues (your Mad Frankie Frasers), who would like to give the impression that they only ever dispatched those who "deserved" it. Watch "Lock Stock & Two Mightily Over-rated Barrels." Read anything by Jake Arnott or James Hawes.
You don't, though. You don't have to buy into all that to like Eddie. (Although you'll have to get over the psychological obstacle of it: the publishers want you to think that Eddie is part and parcel of that whole thing. They include stupid quotes from stupid lad mags on the cover. They print the title in a font that aims to resemble the kind of print left by an ink-stained stamp. "The Animal Factory" has a grainy prison shot. Other Bunker novels have splashes of blood on them. You wonder why they didn't just go the whole hog. Write EDWARD BUNKER IS TOUGH or HE'S BEEN THERE, BABY, AND HE'S HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT IT!)
All of which does Edward Bunker a grave disservice. He's a great writer. Regardless of anything else - regardless of the fact of his having a past - he is a great writer. The Solzhenitsyn thing is apposite. There are, in fact, many similarities between this book and "...Ivan Denisovich". Bunker has a tremendous eye for details. It would be the easiest thing in the world to write an Elmore Leonard-lite prison novel revolving around authentic prison dialogue (authentic, yes, because Bunker has been there, I know). He doesn't do that, though. It would be easy to write and easier to sell.
What I think is this.
In "Waiting for Godot", Vladimir says "What do we do now?" and Estragon replies "Wait." I would imagine that that question - What do we do now? - gets asked a lot in prison. You've got time on your hands. You don't even have Godot to pretend to look forward to. Seems to me that Bunker read. His writing is informed with other books. "The Animal Factory" is as self-referentially canonical as T.S. Eliot would have any book be. I don't know the in's and out's of Bunker's life (and I'm quite happy with that), but I reckon he read a lot and started writing as a way to fill the otherwise empty hours.
It could have been that - without prison, without mixing in a hard-boiled, ugly crowd - he would never have wrote anything down. Could be any number of things. Whatever the reason, Bunker started writing and his hard, authentic voice is stripped of sensation and mightily persuasive. Bunker's characters are the flotsam spewed out of the machine that Sherman McCoy gets sucked into mid-way through "Bonfire of the Vanities" (mid-way through "Bonfire of the Vanities", just after Sherman gets arraigned, he emerges from the court house feeling dead, feeling chewed up and spat out but mostly dead - and that's the product that fills Bunker's books - all these lost misinformed souls in a different kind of gulag).
Bunker's weakness has always been his dialogue. "The Animal Factory" features his worst attempts at writing dialogue. His descriptions of prison life are vivid and real. The words he forces into his character's mouths bring the flow of the narrative to a screeching halt. This is particuarly pronounced in the relationship between the new arrival - a young man who has been sentenced on a drug charge - and the hardened convict who befriends him, a relationship that doesn't ring true.
"The Animal Factory" is not without its merits. As we see the young convict, Ron, change his values and actions in order to survive, it's hard not to view prison as anything but a another phase in the making of a career convict. Bunker effectively portrays prison as a breeding ground for a more violent, desperate brand of criminal. Unfortunately, the weaknesses of this book outweigh the merits.
For readers who have heard of Bunker but have not yet read him, I wouldn't recommend "The Animal Factory" as a starting point. Try "Little Boy Blue" - Bunker's best work - instead.
Though it drags on in places it is great narrative (though not the best) about life in jail. Edward Furlong starred in a film version directed by Steve Buscemi (Mr. Pink in Reservoir Dogs) that does the book justice. So if your still unsure about reading this book, at least check out the movie. Mickey Rourke does a great job as a transvestite con.
FYI: Edward Bunker has a small part in Reservoir Dogs, I think he was Mr. Black.
