True Crime writer Stephen Wade tells the stories
of some of the men he has met in prison: cons and screws, librarians and
Listeners, ex-squaddies and Storybook Dads. An outsider on the Inside, he tries
to explore the psychic geography of a world of rage, hatred, loneliness and
boredom – in Reception, on the landings, in the gym and down the Block. Stretch
is a book about seductive dreams and wrong decisions, heroin and sadness, resolutions,
resignation and regret, with an atonal soundtrack of keys and gates, and doors
that slam ‘like tombs’.