Those Jackson County Blues

Book excerpt: Upon his return to the U.S. after a seven year stint in Germany and Taiwan, a young, native Floridian, a victim of unexpected vississitudes, finds himself teaching in a prison deep in the north Florida Panhandle. The economic crisis of the mid-seventies has led to a massive increase in the number of prisoners facing incarceration. Instead of beginning work on his Ph.D, as planned, the young man is suddenly confronted with the reality of recalcitrant inmates, an arch-conservative administration, plus a whole kaleidoscope of personalities ranging from KKK guards, born-again Christians, black Muslims and a colorful mixture of staff members. Living together with his older brother, who was working at the local Social Security office, he slowly begins to adjust to a completely different world than the one he had experienced abroad, forcing him to accept the stark reality of those social changes which were transforming US society. While struggling to gain a semblance of order in the classroom, he found himself constantly battling his "old south" supervisors, who are suspicious of this liberal newcomer, who, later, seemingly far too often, sides with the inmates. In short, one finds here a microcosm of the US in the mid-seventies, with the young teacher himself raising the unresolved question - quo vadis?