Memoir of a gang member

Nov

Memoir of a gang member

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Inmate Novelist

Author Publishes Book Written on Prison Paper Napkins

Orlando, FL. – (October 31, 2009) –Seizing the opportunity to use his idle time while incarcerated in Iowa prison, Thomas Campbell wrote his 240-page crime-thriller on prison napkins. Thomas Campbell said he kept telling the guards at Clarinda Correctional Facility that he didn’t have money to buy writing paper. “I struggled to have enough money for soap and deodorant,” Thomas said. Taking the napkins was a rule infraction that caused him to spent time in solitary confinement, but Thomas says the guards left him alone after they saw he refused to give up.

By dividing his manuscript into short paragraphs Thomas Campbell saved them on prison napkins. Once released from prison, Thomas typed them onto Lulu.com, a free online book publisher. The book took 4 years to write.

Readers yearning for a deeper understanding of the political counterparts to street gangs need look no further than Campbell’s story.

In Search for a Black Goddess, two gang members fall in love with the same woman. Their fate becomes entwined with that of a CIA drug pilot who trained World Trade Tower attacker, Muhammed Atta. The confrontation of these four people is only one of the dramatic high points in this hardboiled crime-thriller. Thomas Campbell writes with deep understanding of the murder of Che Guevara and the murky world of mercenary terrorist. The novel was written from the confines of Thomas Campbell’s prison cell and it tells how Hilliard Wallace maneuvered the Vice Lords and the Latin Kings to service an insatiable market for cocaine. After released from prison Thomas Campbell’s efforts to be published causes him to become a fugitive. In the nightmare of the chase, Thomas shares a desperate, spiritual love with passionate Dahl Ransby, an aspiring poet. Within a few pages, both sexual drama and the novel’s political exposé will hook readers, as a terror-filled race provides an unforgettable climax.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Campbell spent time in Boy’s Correctional Facility in Eldora, Iowa because of several convictions. He was convicted of robbing a restaurant at gunpoint and at age 17 was sentenced to prison. While in prison he became a member of the Unknown Vice Lords, a drug trafficking gang with political objectives. He has spent most of his life either running from the law or in prison. In prison Thomas studied political science and creative writing. An improbable and inspirational success story, Thomas Campbell spent decades as a solitary confinement inmate before taking up writing, selling the novel “Search for a Black Goddess” from his backpack as he sold The Journal Newspaper around Winston-Salem. He had unprecedented success and his strength as a gangster writer led some to call him the black Mickey Spillane.