Up the Creek Book Club
Home Page |
|
Current Book List |
|
Prior Book Lists |
|
King County Library |
|
Barnes & Noble |
|
Amazon.com |
|
© 2000 Kathy Craig |
God of the Rodeo
by Daniel Bergner
June 1999
Synopsis
"Never before had Daniel Bergner seen a spectacle as bizarre as the one he had come to watch that Sunday in October. Murderers, rapists, and armed robbers were competing in the annual rodeo at Angola, the grim maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana. The incongruity of seeing hope where one would expect only hopelessness, self-control in men who were there because they'd had none, sparked an urgent quest in him. Having gained unlimited and unmonitored access, Bergner spent an unflinching year inside the harsh world of Angola. He forged relationships with seven prisoners who left an indelible impression on him. Looming front and center is Warden Burl Cain, the larger-than-life ruler of Angola who quotes both Jesus and Attila the Hun, declares himself a prophet, and declaims that redemption is possible for even the most depraved criminal. Cain welcomes Bergner in, and so begins a journey that takes the author deep into a forgotten world and forces him to question his most closely held beliefs. The climax of his story is as unexpected as it is wrenching." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "Bergner is a terrific reporter with a novelist's eye. [His] rich, probing and compassionate book is a rare look at both the physical and spiritual world on the other side of the bars." (Peter Applebome - The New York Times Book Review)
- "Fascinating. . . .God of the Rodeo offers a surprising and humane portrait of men trapped in a horror beyond imagining." (Author of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil -John Berendt)
- "A brave, beautifully written book." (New York Daily News)
Book Club Rating and Comments
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Daniel Bergner
- 'Moments of Favor'