The Ruiz decision, in which U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice declared conditions in Texas prisons unconstitutional, becomes the Herrera decision. Draper's prison reformer is named Estelle, invoking the former prison director Jim Estelle, who left under a cloud in the early 1980s, like Thunderball Hope. A minor female character is named Polunsky, after Allan Polunsky, chairman of the Texas Board of Criminal Justice. Most people don't really want to know much about prisons. Even our new, improved ones are places of such misery and despair that the only people who seem concerned are those with relatives inside.
Prisons are about money and political gain.
They are, as Draper says, about retribution, not justice. It takes a satirist's mordant wit to demystify them. Draper has done just that and has told a page-turning tale at the same time. Michael Berryhill is working on a nonfiction book about Texas prisons. He lives in Houston .