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| Plot Summary of Midnight Express |
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"This is the vivid and eye-opening autobiography of student dropout Billy Hayes, who relates his years from 1970-75 in the prisons of Turkey, where he was imprisoned for smuggling hashish. Captured at Istanbul airport by a random search, he has to learn to handle himself inside to survive. His case takes years to go through the courts, slowed down by the grinding wheels of the Turkish injustice system, crooked lawyers, and the bureaucracy found the world over in these cases. American status does not protect him, he is sentenced to life imprisonment, commuted to thirty years. There are graphic descriptions of everything that goes on: there are Turks, Europeans, one or two other Americans, and children all imprisoned together.
He has various plans for escape, the title of the book is his code word for his escape plan. His first plan revolves around getting a psychiatric discharge or escape from an easy prison. A couple of the other prisoners do escape, one by sheer cunning and the other by clever bribery. One or two fail spectacularly. One man is beaten so badly by the warders that he murders one of them when he is released and gets put straight back into the same prison. Billy keeps himself going by correspondence with home and a past girlfriend, and adapting to but not succumbing to the prison regime. He has to learn to stay alive as a person and keep his humanity by forming friendships and alliances where he can. One of the great ironies of being inside is the free availability of hashish and other drugs, which are used by all--police, prison guards, and prisoners alike. Eventually he is transferred to a low security island prison where he can steal a boat, row to the mainland, and escape to Greece. He returned home, much the wiser for his experiences, and co-wrote this book and also signed the Hollywood deal which led to the famous film of the same name."
Michael JR Jose, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of Midnight Express |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
job/profession:
- criminal (general)
Job/profession/poverty story
Yes
Which institution
- prison
Life in an institution
Yes
Period of greatest activity?
- 1950+
Subject of Biography
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity
- White
Nationality
- American (!)
How sensitive is this person?
- middling sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Mostly serious with occasional humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other people
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 6 ()
Europe
Yes
European country:
- Turkey
City?
Yes
Misc setting
- prison
Century:
- 1960's-1970's
Style
Person
- mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- moderately detailed references to deaths
Book makes you feel?
- concerned
Sex in book?
Yes
What kind of sex:
- touching of anatomy
Commentary on society?
Yes
Commentary on
- justice system
Writer's slant towards subject:
- somewhat unfavorable
Story of entire life, or part?
- story of set of events during life
Autobiography?
Yes
How much dialogue in bio?
- significantly more descript than dialog
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life?
- 76%-100% of book
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Click here for more information about this book
Billy Hayes and William Hoffer Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Michael JR Jose
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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