Tramp Lit: You Can't Win (Paperback)

from Stahl-Ricco

Smiler - “Kid, I'll never try to rob another Mormon. I'll go to work first.” The author, Salt Chunk Mary, the Sanctimonious Kid (Sanc), Civil War veterans and all manner of 'yeggs', vags, bums, winos, and ‘hypos' fill this book with a cornucopia of colorful characters! Heck, even Bat Masterson is...

from ChazzW

Somewhere, buried in an article about something else, I saw an oblique reference to Jack Black's 1926 memoir as a little known cult classic. Hooked. I'm a sucker for little known classics, so I had to read this one. A sort of cautionary tale replete with gentle sermonizing, it's also a truly fasc...

from amareshjoshi

Very interesting look at the lives of thieves and hobos in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America and Canada. Well written in simple plain language. There were a lot of typos though, as if the editor used a spell checker.

from Stbalbach

I'm giving You Can't Win 4.5 stars placing it on the "cult classic" category because almost 100 years after publication it's still in print, there is even a movie version coming out this year (2015). It was also an influential favorite with Beat writers including William S. Burroughs who emulated...

from datrappert

i have read two autobiographies in a row now, and they couldn't be more different--Chateaubriand and Jack Black! No, not that Jack Black. This is former criminal and hobo Jack Black, who published this book in 1926. Like Chateaubriand, he gives an incisive picture of his life and times. Of course...