Bronson [Paperback]

'Ghosting' is the term used when a high security prisoner is transferred at short notice between prisons. We know this because Bronson tells us. He also tells us about body belts, his many and seemingly never-ending supply of mates in and out of prison and a seemingly exhaustive account of his prison moves.
Robin Ackyrod is on hand to help tell Bronson's sad and depressingly predictable story but it's hard to tell what contribution he has made. In fact Bronson seems to be firmly in control here and his writing style rapidly becomes laboured and repetitive. There are far too many similar chapters which rarely deviate from a bare, blunt, no-nonsense tone. He does time and press-ups, he messes up, he is punished and moved. He lists the name of cons without going into too much detail.

I have no doubt that for someone who has spent 28 years in prison Bronson has a compelling story to tell. But it has to be told alongside that of the penal system for it to mean anything at all. As it stands, it reads as a diary of futility, railing against himself and the system. The repetitive structure is enlivened by the odd occasional anecdote and one-liner but there are many passages where some explanation is warranted but Bronson refuses to come clean. For example he impulsively attacks a prisoner who is a member of the IRA but he doesn't really address why he "explodes" or starts to build up to violent episodes. Cons and screws upset him, while some don't. After a while he's simply unable to say why and the only outcome of that is to have you empathising with the difficult job the screws are burdened with. I lost count of the number of best-ever mates he has at each prison. The impulsive, impetuous acts as far as I could see only had their root in boredom - not the most attractive reason or justification.

Consequently there is little insight into the psycho-pathology of the man - things just happen. Early on a potentially gripping trip through the asylums is weakly written. For anyone else that could have opened up a number of interesting topics but of course here we are limited to talk of "nutters" and their crazy behaviour. Nor does he linger on the extraordinary fact that he never should have been in the asylums in the first place.
Like some force of nature that reverberates between extremes we are asked to take him as he is or not at all. In fact he won't bend at all even when his violence affects those he respects and loves.

I found his points about a "strict moral code" inside prison to be distasteful. No he hasn't got much time for sex-killers and child abusers. In fact he tries to hurt them. Some people would say there is nothing wrong with that. But he does deify some very nasty people indeed particularly Reggie Kray. It's pretty clear at this point that Bronson's moral compass is seriously deficient. It's an area that he gets around by not condoning these crimes and emphasising virtues of loyalty, mental strength and camaraderie. It doesn't totally work for me because Bronson, who sees his life as a trial of his mental and physical strength, feels a victim of forces greater than himself and thus claims a degree of self-righteousness. And for someone of whom Ackroyd claims would merely have been a "circus strong-man" two hundred years ago, throwing his lot in with the likes of the Krays perhaps reveals more than Bronson intended.

On the plus side, Bronson says he is responsible for his situation, though crucially he claims that the system makes him worse, that while he is unyielding he is the only loser in this fight and he warns the reader about the perils of criminality. And if his account of his incarceration are fairly inclusive then I wonder why he hasn't been assessed for alternative psychological and drug treatments. And with a parole date of 2010 that he might conceivably make I would hope some sort of counselling is on the cards. After all he had reasonable grounds to complain of being ill-prepared when he was first released.

When I picked up this book I already found Bronson fascinating. But midway into this book I see him as merely an a conduit for fascination. He is a celebrity, adored by the cons and the crime-obsessed fan cliques and projected as a madman to the tabloid-reading masses. But they don't really know him, in fact don't need to, for his reputation is far more potent. This book doesn't really tell us anything particularly deep about Bronson or about the penal system. It is simply more fuel for our fascination for celebrity criminals and that is a pretty distasteful area in of itself.

I found it a frustrating read for this reasons but it clearly made me think. But I don't think anyone would be wise to make up their minds about Bronson on the basis of this one-sided and very narrowly focused account.

I usually like these kind of books, I loved the ones about Lenny McLean, Howard Marks, Dave Courtney et al, in a perverse way it lets me think about a cool and exciting different type of life, so I figured i'd enjoy this one too. Some previous reviewers say that Bronson doesn't deserve to be locked up as long as he has, but the book basically goes like this: "....i do lots of press-ups.....then this guy annoyed me, so I smacked him....then i get transferred to another prison....then i smacked someone there....so I stormed the roof, and did £xxx damage....so i got locked in solitary....so when i got out i smacked someone...". Bronson is obviously a complete nut case, and the fact that he got sent back to jail after only being free for about 65 days, because he robbed a jewellery store, and thinks this is an outrage! Guys like McLean, Courtney, Marks etc. did what they did, did their time like men, and moved on ( sometimes to worse things and got caught again ) but at least they were smart enough not to keep doing things while in jail, and continually keep getting years added to their sentence like has happened to old Charlie.

after reading this book i had the feeling that you could not help but like him, as for the way hes been treated well to me it seems wrong, hes not a child killer and he never attacked the elderly or females so why is he treated so bad when its clearly a case of mental illness he sufferes from ??...hes done his time over and over yet because of his temper and strength no prison wants him, charles bronson is not bad hes mentally ill and the treatment he has to put up with is inhuman and wrong........this book is a good read if only to see how hes slipped the net and its seems hes got to stay inside for life........life, for basically doing a robbery due to his mental illness.