Word: abbotts
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Abbott began his correspondence with Mailer after reading that he was at work on a book about Gary Gilmore, a Utah inmate who was executed for murder in 1977. Abbott, who had spent all but 9½ months of his adult life in prison, offered to give the author a sense of "the atmospheric pressure" endured by long-term convicts like Gilmore. Mailer accepted the offer and was stunned by the hard-edged eloquence of the self-educated Abbott, who boasted: "Nine-tenths of my vocabulary I have never heard spoken." Wrote Mailer: "I felt all the awe one knows...
...Abbott arrived in New York on June 5 with something "only one in a million convicts ever get," as Ed Henson of the federal Bureau of Prisons put it. Not only was Abbott suddenly free-a condition he had once likened to "a free man's dreams of heaven"-he was also a celebrity, invited to literary parties and interviewed on Good Morning America. His work would be hailed in the New York Times Book Review as an "awesome, brilliant, perversely ingenuous . . . articulation of penal nightmare." Says Henson: "He had everything a man needs to start a life outside...
...Abbott was staying at a Salvation Army halfway house in Lower Manhattan until his parole became official on Aug. 25. He was required to check in seven times a day, but otherwise was free to enjoy the city. He was doing just that on early Saturday morning, July 18, in the company of two attractive, well-educated young women he had met at a party. At 5:30 they stopped at the Bini-Bon Restaurant near the halfway house; it is a threadbare bohemian place, open 24 hours. Behind the counter was Richard Adan, 22, an aspiring actor and playwright...
...Abbott asked Adan the direction to the men's room and was told it was for the help only. Abbott calmly asked if he could use it anyway. Adan told him it was against health rules; if opened to the public, it would not remain clean. Could this have touched the consuming rage Abbott had written about? He quietly asked Adan to step outside to "talk this over." The younger man agreed. Around the dark street corner, a knife appeared. Adan was stabbed in the chest, in almost exactly the way that Abbott had described in his book...
...Adan staggered toward the restaurant, Abbott ran in and told his two friends, "Come on." Minutes after they left, the police arrived. No charges have been filed, but Abbott is wanted for questioning in the murder. Federal authorities have a warrant out to arrest him as a fugitive, should he leave New York State...