Inspired by his friend Ed Morell, who spent five years in the barbaric San Quentin jail, THE STAR ROVER is a searing indictment of a violent and corrupt penal system. Describing the brutality of a life behind bars, it explores the power of imagination to transcend physical hardship, and ultimately sustain hope.
Inspired by his friend Ed Morell, who spent five years in the barbaric San Quentin jail, THE STAR ROVER is a searing indictment of a violent and corrupt penal system. Describing the brutality of a life behind bars, it explores the power of imagination to transcend physical hardship, and ultimately sustain hope.
The Star Rover is the story of San Quentin death-row inmate Darrell Standing, who escapes the horror of prison life-and long stretches in a straitjacket-by withdrawing into vivid dreams of past lives, including incarnations as a French nobleman and an Englishman in medieval Korea. Based on the life and imprisonment of Jack London's friend Ed Morrell, this is one of the author's most complex and original works. As Lorenzo Carcaterra argues in his Introduction, The Star Rover is "written with energy and force, brilliantly marching between the netherworlds of brutality and beauty."This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the text of the first American edition, published in 1915.
“"A genuine quest for the myths of the unconscious. . . . [A work of] true power." -Andrew Sinclair”
“A genuine quest for the myths of the unconscious. . . . [A work of] true power.” —Andrew Sinclair
Lorenzo Carcaterra is the author of the novels Sleepers, Apaches, Gangster, and Street Boys, and a memoir, A Safe Place. He lives in New York.
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