Jack Henry Abbott

Jack Henry Abbott (21 January 1944, Oscoda, Michigan — 10 February 2002, Alden, New York) was a controversial American novelist and murderer best known for In the Belly of the Beast memoir, based on his extensive correspondence with renowned writer Norman Mailer and published by Random House in June 1981. Abbott first contacted Mailer in 1977 after reading about the author's planned biography of Gary Gilmore, a notorious killer recently executed in Utah. Over the next three years, Jack, a lifelong "career" criminal serving 40+ years in the same state's prison system, exchanged thousands of letters of him. Eventually, Mailer helped Abbott to compile and publish his memoirs, also writing an introduction. The same month as "In the Belly of the Beast" hit the bookshelves, Abbott was released from prison and moved to a halfway house in New York, mainly due to vocal support and appeals to the parole board by Norman Mailer, Jerzy Kosinski and several other famous US writers. Six weeks later, Jack Abbott stabbed and killed a 22-year-old waiter at "Binibon" cafe in Manhattan. By tragic coincidence, the murder occurred just one day before The New York Times published Anatole Broyard's favorable review of his book. Arrested in Louisiana shortly after, Jack stood trial in January 1982 and got 15 years to life for manslaughter. His victim's widow sued for damages, awarded over $7.5 mln by the court and thus collecting all subsequent royalties; besides the $12,500 advance fee for "In the Belly of the Beast," Abbott never profited from his writings. Literary celebrities who vouched for Abbott were heavily criticized for their involvement. In the Time Magazine's article in August 1981, Jerzy Kosinski retrospectively described Abbott as a "fraud" and claimed they "pretended he had always been a writer," drawing parallels with the '60s intellectuals embracing the Black Panthers in the "moment of radical chic without understanding their experience." Mailer also regretted this episode of his life in subsequent interviews. In 1987, Jack Abbott published My Return, co-authored with Ph.D. and CUNY's Professor of Philosophy Naomi Zack, who argued Abbott was "unfairly convicted by an outraged public opinion inflamed by sensational media treatment." His second book was far less popular and impactful. In 2001, the parole board denied Abbott's appeal, citing his "failure to express remorse," lengthy criminal record and disciplinary problems. A year later, 58-year-old Jack Abbott hanged himself at Wende Correctional Facility in Erie County, New York. His suicide note remained undisclosed. Abbott's book could be seen abandoned in the dust outside Bates Motel in the iconic 1983 slasher Psycho II, as well as in a main character's prison cell in John Badham's '87 film Stakeout. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds wrote one of the songs on Your Funeral ... My Trial LP in 1986, "Jack's Shadow," about Abbott. Two years later, Nick Cave also appeared on the soundtrack for the Australian film Ghosts… of the Civil Dead, directed by John Hillcoat and based on Jack Abbott's story. In 1999, a South-African film director Ian Kerkhof/Aryan Kaganof used excerpts of "In the Belly of the Beast" in his Shabondama Elegy, for which he won the "Golden Calf Special Jury Prize" at the Netherlands Film Festival. In 2009, Elliott Sharp and Jack Womack premiered their play "Binion" on Abbott's murder at The Kitchen, New York City.