A Bad Man

A black market dealer must reconcile his lifetime of sins as he faces hard time in prison A born salesman, Leo Feldman can peddle anything from clothing and appliances to prostitutes, guns, and drugs. Although guilty of myriad crimes, Feldman is sentenced to prison as the result of a clerical error that charged him with a crime he did not commit. Now, completely vulnerable to the inmates who surround him—and to the stern Warden Fisher—Feldman must come to terms with what it means to be jailed not for his crimes, but for his character. Wry and insightful, A Bad Man is an engrossing story of an antihero’s journey through the twisted world of an unforgiving penal system. This ebook features rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate and from the Stanley Elkin archives at Washington University in St. Louis. A black market dealer must reconcile his lifetime of sins as he faces hard time in prisonA born salesman, Leo Feldman can peddle anything from clothing and appliances to prostitutes, guns, and drugs. Although guilty of myriad crimes, Feldman is sentenced to prison as the result of a clerical error that charged him with a crime he did not commit. Now, completely vulnerable to the inmates who surround him{u2014}and to the stern Warden Fisher{u2014}Feldman must come to terms with what it means to be jailed not for his crimes, but for his character. Wry and insightful, A Bad Man is an engrossing story of an antihero{u2019}s journey through the twisted world of an unforgiving penal system. This ebook features rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author{u2019}s estate and from the Stanley Elkin archives at Washington University in St. Louis "Sentenced to a year in jail for providing his customers with everything they needed - drugs for the nervous, abortions for the unintending, guns for the crazed - department store owner Leo Feldman finds himself in a Kafkaesque prison. Labeled a "bad man," Feldman is treated as a fool, made to wear a clownish version of his business suit with oversized button holes too big for the buttons and miscut legs and pockets. While incarcerated, he's forced to come to terms with his criminal self - a man always on the make, one who can't avoid overselling to the poor and lying to the trusting - in this grey-stone purgatory run by a sadistic prison warden who enforces a set of elaborate, ever-shifting rules."--Jacket.

Sentenced to a year in jail for providing his customers with everything they needed - drugs for the nervous, abortions for the unintending, guns for the crazed - department store owner Leo Feldman finds himself in a Kafkaesque prison. Labeled a "bad man," Feldman is treated as a fool, made to wear a clownish version of his business suit with oversized button holes too big for the buttons and miscut legs and pockets. While incarcerated, he's forced to come to terms with his criminal self - a man always on the make, one who can't avoid overselling to the poor and lying to the trusting - in this grey-stone purgatory run by a sadistic prison warden who enforces a set of elaborate, ever-shifting rules.

Breaking the law in a foolhardy attempt to accommodate his customers, unscrupulous department store owner Leo Feldman finds himself in jail and at the mercy of the warden, who tries to break Leo of his determination to stay bad.