Jack Black (author)

For other people named Jack Black, see Jack Black (disambiguation).
Image of Black that appeared in the San Francisco Call in 1912

Jack Black (1871 - presumably 1932) was a late-19th-century/early-20th-century hobo and professional burglar, author, and librarian for the San Francisco Call. Born in 1871 near Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri. He wrote You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926) a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book. Jack Black was writing from experience, having spent thirty years (fifteen of which were spent in various prisons) as a traveling criminal and offers tales of being a cross-country stick-up man, home burglar, petty thief, and opium fiend. He gained fame through association with William S. Burroughs and his writings had a profound effect on the writings and lives of all the Beat Generation.

Life

Jack Black is an essentially anonymous figure; even his actual name is uncertain, although a 1912 newspaper article gives his real name as Thomas Callaghan.[1] One of his nicknames among criminals was Blacky.

After his last spell in prison Jack Black became friends with wealthy patron Fremont Older and worked for Older's newspaper The San Francisco Call. He worked on his autobiography with Rose Wilder Lane and eventually composed essays and lectured throughout the country on prison reform. He was also rumored to have received a stipend of $150 a week to draft a screenplay titled Salt Chunk Mary with co-author Bessie Beatty, based around the infamous vagabond ally and fence of the same name in You Can't Win. The play flopped, although he was able to attain some amount of popularity, which subsided quickly.

His philosophy on life was especially influential to William S. Burroughs,[2] who associated with similar characters in his early adulthood and mirrored the style of You Can't Win with his first published book, Junkie, Black's writings also had a profound effect on the writings and lives of all the Beat Generation.

He is believed to have committed suicide in 1932 by drowning, as he reportedly told his friends that if life got too grim, he would row out into New York Harbor and, with weights tied to his feet, drop overboard.[3] In You Can't Win Black describes this state of mind as being "ready for the river".[4]

Quoted excerpts about Black and his memoir

The Builder Magazine, January 1927 – Volume XIII – Number 1.

Bibliography

References

  1. ↑ San Francisco Call, Volume 111, Number 36, 5 January 1912
  2. ↑ "I first read You Can’t Win in 1926, in an edition bound in red cardboard. Stultified and confined by middle-class St. Louis mores, I was fascinated by this glimpse of anunderworld of seedy rooming-houses, pool parlors, cat-houses and opium dens...", Burroughs, foreword to a later edition of "You Can't Win"
  3. ↑ Ruhland, Bruno. Afterword. You Can't Win, by Jack Black. AK Press/Nabat, 2000. 272. ISBN 1-902593-02-2.
  4. ↑ Black 1926, pp. 49, 50, 153.

Cited sources

Further reading

External links