It's a pity that Watkins rarely steps back from telling his fine story to point out any larger meaning. It activates the brain, induces a frenzy of querulousness and makes one want to scribble in red ink up and down the margins. Pinker's intellectual opponents may feel he is overgenerous to his own side . . . Over all, Pinker is quite balanced in his presentation . . . There is a groping authenticity of language here that encourages us to think again about prison life . . .
Some pieces fall into polemic.
Some are overwritten. We glimpse lives in progress, the difficult origins not always smoothed away in revision, the materials raw for our use. But when he is at his simplest, Adler seems a naturally gifted writer. An intimate revelation of the slow death that prompted her to bear witness to the life that was ebbing . . . Wherever you go on this trip, you feel that the author has been there before you . . .