TITLE INFORMATION
EUREKA MAN
Middleton, Patrick
CreateSpace (270 pp.)
$11.50 paperback, $3.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1494224202; October 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
A debut novel about a decade in the life of an incarcerated man who attempts to vindicate himself through higher
education and enlightenment.
Oliver Priddy, as the story opens, is a teenager sentenced to do time in a Pennsylvania boys’ reform school for assaulting
his abusive stepfather and committing a robbery. When he becomes the focus of school bully Jimmy Six’s bloody
violence, he exacts vengeance by killing Jimmy with a baseball bat—which lands him in Riverview Penitentiary in 1977
to serve a life sentence for murder, with no possibility of parole. But although Middleton keeps his protagonist firmly
under lock and key, he also spins Priddy’s seemingly hopeless situation into a tale of strength and perseverance,
revealing Priddy’s abusive family history along the way. The inmate radically changes his self-destructive course of
conduct after some much-needed introspection, and after receiving visits from his brother, his biological father and his
new love, Penelope. He also gets kind words from his fellow inmate Early Greer, who counsels him to “[g]o to school,
learn a trade.” He busies himself in the ward’s education department, under the guidance of a volunteer professor. He
also faces challenges from sexual predators, as prisoner deaths at the institution mysteriously increase. Despite the
dangers, Priddy still manages to educate himself and compare notes with other inmates, such as Champ Burnett, an
intimidating prisoner he tutors in math in exchange for protection inside the jailhouse. Middleton, a prisoner whose own
incarceration has produced college degrees, textbooks, a memoir and a self-help book, crafts an atmospheric,
semiautobiographical tale. In it, he effectively captures the prison experience, complete with panicked lockdowns, riots,
bittersweet visitations from friends and family, and the unquenchable passion of becoming a self-made intellectual while
living life permanently behind bars. Overall, it’s a story about the power of positive thinking and hard work, and
Priddy’s story shines with hopefulness throughout.
A searingly honest novel of determination and redemption that’s also an emotionally rewarding reading experience.
Kirkus
