You can't win

A candid first-person memoir traces a life spent in vagrancy and professional theft, describing the thieves' subculture, schemes, and betrayals alongside periods of heavy substance use and desperation. It chronicles multiple imprisonments and encounters with harsh punishments, and shows how access to books and sustained reflection produced a mental awakening and a deliberate effort to break habitual criminality. Interwoven are observations on habit, self-control, loyalty among outcasts, and critiques of punitive prison practices, ending with the author's attempt to reform and a sober analysis of causes and remedies for criminal behavior.