I remember one year when I was much younger than I am now and in a room lonelier than this an old-fashioned windowless (county raised/state paid) structure, the kind with corkboard partition walls and chocolate brown threadbare carpet, the kind with two chairs and a rectangle boardroom table, in the middle, a wooden box with huge plastic pegs for small funny shaped holes. And a psychologist who sidled too close to boys, who always stunk of Hi Karate cologne and antiseptic, who had yellow nails and labored breathing, who stared at you from over the rim of his wire glasses, who like to play word association and ask for personal histories, where leather straps and iron cuffs and long chains were still in style, where little men like these jogged down notes and determined futures of young boys like me he asked about my mother...
Book Review
Reviewed by Vernita Naylor for Readers' Favorite
Have you ever felt isolated or confined? What did you do and how did you handle it? As you read
this book, you may see your situation next time from a different perspective. Family, past
memories, and being 12 years old again when times were different and innocence was king is
what A Generation of Dark: A Prison Notebook by C.F. Villa is all about. In this book you will find
several short stories, poems, and novellas about life. C.F. Villa had experienced fifteen years in
solitary confinement and writing was the catalyst that brought peace and comfort to his terrible
existence in isolation. Even after being released back into the general population at the California
Correctional Center after serving fifteen years in isolation, other works followed this collection. As
you read through the pages of this book, C.F. Villa takes you on a journey to see the variances of
life, history, and photos that take you back in time, to even Hitler's invasion.
I found this an interesting take on capturing and cataloging one's life. There is so much to each
one of us and with several layers that build up to who we are. It was more intriguing that C.F. Villa
would continually go back to his youth, to the age of 12 years old when life and things were
simpler and happier. This book is ideal for those interested in reading another's account of life,
and the thoughts of someone that may be confined and isolated physically, but free mentally.
Great piece of work.