COMMITTING JOURNALISM: The Prison Writings of Red...

COMMITTING JOURNALISM: The Prison Writings of Red Hog by Dannie M. Martin and Peter Y. Sussman (Norton: $13; 341 pp.). In 1986, Peter Sussman, the editor of the Sunday Punch section of the San Francisco Chronicle, received a surprisingly well-written article from an inmate about AIDS in prison. He published the piece, initiating a curious literary friendship with Dannie “Red Hog” Martin. The more than 20 years he had spent behind bars enabled Martin to write knowledgeably about the strange society that exists within prison walls. When a warden felt Martin’s articles criticized the penal system in general and his administration in particular, he attempted to silence the writer, precipitating a major court battle over First Amendment rights. Sussman’s provocative narrative traces Martin’s efforts to achieve genuine rehabilitation in the face of bureaucratic pettifogging.