Synopsis

James grows up as a still-water-runs-deep boy struggling to navigate the barbed streets of Oakland, California. His only true friend is Spike, a pit bull he rescues from dog fighting. On the cusp of entering college, James commits a crime that results in a prison term of thirty to life.

Allison, a young Indiana girl obsessed with Nancy Drew novels, vows that her life’s mission will be to solve mysteries and help people. Introverted yet daring, Allison enters college, grows into her nascent identity as a lesbian, finds her life partner, moves to the West Coast to teach prep school, and volunteers as a tutor at San Quentin. She meets James, learns his story, and after his parole denial, channels Nancy Drew to plan his impossible escape.

San Quentin Exodus is a braided novel about two people whose lives cross in a quest to reset an ill-fated life. It is a story infused with pain, but also with a fierce humanity and hope.

“San Quentin Exodus, Bill Smoot’s deeply compelling novel, introduces readers to the world of prison but really to the much bigger world of his characters’ lives, inviting us to follow the trajectory of each as it unfolds with surprise and mystery, love and loss. Like all good literature, San Quentin Exodus ultimately asks us to reconsider everything we believe—or think we believe. Smoot is the consummate storyteller: restrained, wise, compassionate.” —Lori Ostlund, author of Are You Happy 

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Excerpt

James lies in his bunk thinking. Williams is snoring below him. He listens to the usual prison sounds—a key in a lock, a CO’s bootsteps echoing on the concrete, inmates moaning in their sleep, an occasional angry word shouted to no one but heard by all. The roar of flushing toilets. This will be the soundtrack for the rest of his life.

He thinks about Allison, how she teared up. Not since Mama died has anyone fully felt what he felt. The guys who heard about his denial got on board with his anger and his disgust, but they didn’t feel his feelings. There’s too much pain in prison. Anyone who starts feeling the pain of others will collapse under the weight.

For thirty years he has survived within the fortress of his self, fending off forces that lie in wait. Now the enemy has tunneled inside, sapping his determination, his hope, his strength. Even his mind feels defeated. Nothing is left but surrender.

Lying here, his hands behind his head, he has an epiphany: the only way out is to jump from the fifth tier of the next cell block. It does not seem like an idea coming from inside his head, but from some over-voice stating what cannot be denied. Maybe it’s the voice of God. It is said on the yard that hope is the one thing they can never take from you. James does not know whether hope has been taken or by whom, but he knows that hope is gone. He recalls Hamlet’s words:

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses of this world.

He drifts toward sleep thinking that death is devoutly to be wished. The possibility of parole was the thin cord holding him up. Now that it has broken, he does not want to continue life in prison. The only way out of this unbearable life is death. He wonders if there is an afterlife. Maybe he will be reunited with Spike.

About the Author

Bill Smoot grew up in Maysville, Kentucky, and received his BA at Purdue University where he was the editor of the student newspaper. He was fired from his position by the university president for the newspaper’s editorial policies and then reinstated when the campus rose up in protest. He received his PhD in philosophy from Northwestern.
He has published essays and short stories in such publications as The Nation, Crab Orchard Review, Literary Review, The Sun, Western Humanities Review, Barely South, Ninth Letter, Mud Season Review, Crab Creek Review, and Narrative. He is the author of a novel, San Quentin Exodus and a non-fiction book, Conversations with Great Teachers.
He lives in Berkeley, California, and teaches college courses at Mount Tamalpais College in San Quentin Prison.

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