Marching Powder: A True Story of Friendship, Cocaine, and South America's Strangest Jail | 
 enlarge | Authors: Thomas Mcfadden, Rusty Young
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $9.11
You Save: $6.84 (43%)
New (23) Used (12) from $7.99
Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 36950
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 0312330340
Dewey Decimal Number: 365.98412092
EAN: 9780312330347
ASIN: 0312330340
Publication Date: May 1, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 4 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20090105231050T
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Rusty Young was backpacking in South America when he heard about Thomas McFadden, a convicted English drug trafficker who ran tours inside Bolivia's notorious San Pedro prison. Intrigued, the young Australian journalisted went to La Paz and joined one of Thomas's illegal tours. They formed an instant friendship and then became partners in an attempt to record Thomas's experiences in the jail. Rusty bribed the guards to allow him to stay and for the next three months he lived inside the prison, sharing a cell with Thomas and recording one of the strangest and most compelling prison stories of all time. The result is Marching Powder.
This book establishes that San Pedro is not your average prison. Inmates are expected to buy their cells from real estate agents. Others run shops and restaurants. Women and children live with imprisoned family members. It is a place where corrupt politicians and drug lords live in luxury apartments, while the poorest prisoners are subjected to squalor and deprivation. Violence is a constant threat, and sections of San Pedro that echo with the sound of children by day house some of Bolivia's busiest cocaine laboratories by night. In San Pedro, cocaine--"Bolivian marching powder"--makes life bearable. Even the prison cat is addicted.
Yet Marching Powder is also the tale of friendship, a place where horror is countered by humor and cruelty and compassion can inhabit the same cell. This is cutting-edge travel-writing and a fascinating account of infiltration into the South American drug culture.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 15 more reviews...
 Not amazingly well written - but an indepth account of a very bizarre world August 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Marching Powder is a ghost written account of an Englishman's incarceration in an Bolivian jail.
Whilst the book is no great work of literature, the amazing world that it uncovers is worthy of reading about, and intriging enough to make you want to read on and on.
Unlike other prison memoirs that I have read, such as The Damage Done: Twelve Years of Hell in a Bangkok Prison (highly recomended) - this prison is not the ultra violent place you might imagine.
As long as you have the money, prisoners can live a reasonably comfortable life, set up businesses, have friends over to stay, even go out night clubbing!
A good read - purley for the insight into such a weird world.
 Couldn't put it down! July 5, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was an amazing book. It read like fiction in the sense that I couldn't put it down. Everything was so unbelievable that at first I thought this was fiction! But no, it was all real. Talk about a messed up legal system...
Very intriguing! February 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I coldn't put this down once I started it. The three other people I lent it to, felt the same way. It is an amazing story of one of the most bizarre prisons in the world and what it took to survive there for 4+ years.
I visited Thomas in prison January 5, 2008
In early 1998, while traveling solo through South America, I was told I had to visit Thomas McFadden when I got to LaPaz. After I visited Thomas, I told two other travelers, so I can see how his tour business was so large. When I came back to the USA, I only told a few people about visiting Thomas because being a female traveling alone it wasn't the smartest thing I ever did. So, when I read about this book in Oprah, I was so excited to read his story. I thought the book was very well written, easy to read and very entertaining; I think everyone who reads this book will like it.
Some of the reviews don't believe his is for real, but I know he is. As far as embellishing I can't comment on that, but he is a very likeable guy. I spent the day with him as his visitor. He was extremely courteous and nice. In the afternoon, I didn't know how to repay him for showing me around so I asked what I could do for him. He wanted a pizza from outside the prison. When I came back with the Pizza it was when visiting hours were ending, so Thomas bribed the guards to let me in. I didn't know all this until later. I was brought to his section and locked in. At that moment, I was pretty scared. But, once I found Thomas, we had a fun time eating p
An amazing glimpse into another world November 25, 2007
Marching Powder was a great read. Despite the actions that led Thomas McFadden into the San Pedro prison system, you root for him to succeed in this sub-world that is ruled by the best and worst of capitalism.
|
|
|
