Midnight Express

Rating:
Summary: Come on, now!
Review: Don't you think it's rather odd that the co-author of this book, William Hoffer, is the co-author of another book of it's kind, Not Without My Daughter? Apparently William Hoffer hit gold with Midnight Express in the 70's, so he stuck to his formula: Write a sensational, over-dramatic, one sided, racist book for people who don't and will never know anything else about the middle east. There sure is an audience for it in America!

Not Without My Daughter was filmed in Israel, with actor mostly from Israel, Midnight Express was filmed mostly with Greek actors. Obviously certain governments funded these movies, they are obviously propoganda.
I don't know which one is more sad, the man who feeds on the racism and ignorance of the masses for money and fame, or the masses of racist and ignorant people that don't care to know any better.
Which country is next Mr Hoffer? When will we see our next sensational hit? We're waiting with our extra large movie-theatre-buttered popcorn in one hand, and the flag in the other.

Rating:
Summary: What a boring pile of slush
Review: It's incredible that this yankee brat likened this drivel of book to Papillon, one of the greatest books ever. How dares he, this spoilt NY brat who couldn't figure out if to smoke hash or pot or be gay or not.
It's one of the worst books ever! It has nothing to do with Papillon at all!
It's a diary of a whiner, a naive primitive, spoilt American, and a criminal brat.
Let's face it, he did attempt to smuggle and he was a drug user. There's no way around it!
Papillon is a march towards grace and soul freedom over elements and hurdles of life told in the most adventurous style. This lowly tale is a strife of a spoilt New Yorker, who never once had to work in his life and had everything handed to him on a platter. His tribulations are of personal nature only second guessing his sexuality and penchant for drug abuse. Nothing in the book makes for good reading. It's of no spiritual or uplifting value.

Rating:
Summary: A touching novel with real characters.
Review: This book is more than just account of what Billy Hayes went through. It's an acutal novel. There are some real lessons about life buried in here. Many of us will be able to relate to how, while in prison, Billy formed a long-distance bond with a girl he had dated in the past, and the bond formed only because he was lonely and had unrealistic memories of her.

And we'll understand Billy's newly found love for his family and his country. We can all remember a time when we began to understand our parents better and came to love them more deeply.

Billy learned all these lessons, but for a terrible price.

The story is twice as exciting when you realize that it is non-fiction. This book is out of print, but if you look hard, you can find it. And it's an easy read, and not too long (about 300 pages.)

Rating:
Summary: Come on, now!
Review: This is one of the best prison books alongside "Papillion," "Death and the Maiden," and "Kiss of the Spider Woman."

It's purpose is to juxtapose foolish freedom with insane ancient cultures. The result is tragic, terrifying, and almost beyond comprehension in it's cruelty. Turkey has been infamous for it's torture techinques for CENTURIES! And if you don't believe prison life in Muslim countries isn't still like this, you must be crazy! (Read "Not Without My Daughter;" the film doesn't even begin to touch on the horrors Betty Mahmoody survived in Iran). As another (very disturbed) reviewer points out here, William Hoffer is
the co-author of both books, NOT because he is a "one sided, racist" but because that's the genre he's an expert in! AND, HE IS NOT TELLING THE STORIES, BILLY AND BETTY ARE!!!

One REALLY cool note: you can see the REAL Billy Hayes acting in a play about prison life filmed at the Odessey Theatre in Los Angeles in 1988! It's called, "The Cage" and it's only available on half(dot)com. Hard to believe that he'd want to recreate the "sadism of prison guards and the inmates' frenzied cruelty to each other" (Variety) only 13 years after escaping the Turkish prison!

Rating:
Summary: WAITING FOR GODOT IN A TURKISH PRISON
Review: This is the vivid, detailed, and eye-opening autobiography of student dropout Billy Hayes, who relates his years from 1970-75 in the prisons of Turkey, where he was imprisoned for smuggling hashish. Captured at Istanbul airport by a random search, he has to learn to handle himself inside quickly if he is to survive. His case takes years to go through the courts, slowed down by the grinding wheels of the Turkish injustice system, crooked lawyers, and the bureaucracy found the world over in these cases. American status does not protect him, he is sentenced to life imprisonment, commuted to thirty years. There are graphic descriptions of everything that goes on: there are Turks, Europeans, one or two other Americans, and children all imprisoned together.

He has various plans for escape, the title of the book being his code word for his escape plan. His first plan revolves around getting a psychiatric discharge or escape from an easy prison. A couple of the other prisoners do escape, one by sheer cunning and the other by clever bribery. One or two fail spectacularly. One man is beaten so badly by the warders that he murders one of them when he is released and gets put straight back into the same prison, where now his status is much higher, as murder is considered a 'manly' crime there. Billy keeps himself going by correspondence with home and a past girlfriend, and adapting to but not succumbing to the prison regime. He has to learn to stay alive as a person and keep his humanity by forming friendships and alliances where he can.

One of the great ironies of being inside in Turkey for smuggling hash is that there is free availability of hashish and other drugs, which are used by all--police, prison guards, and prisoners alike. Eventually he is transferred to a low security island prison where he can steal a boat, row to the mainland, and escape to Greece. He returned home, much the wiser for his experiences, and co-wrote this book and also signed the Hollywood deal which led to the famous film of the same name. An exciting story, and an eye-opening account of the seamy side of Turkey.

Rating:
Summary: Sticking to the point would be advisable to some..
Review: This legendary book (and later movie of the same caliber) has provoked and is still provoking so much off the point debate that it's hard to fathom.

A discussion about Turkey and its pros and cons belongs either in a different forum or upon a different book as a vehicle for argumentation. Even Hayes himself despite his martyrdom had said publicly after his escape to the States that his intention had never been a defamation of Turkey or the Turks. So lets leave it at that.

To the book itself, this is indeed a momumental reading describing the utter and surreal ordeal that Hayes, a convicted hash smuggler endured while incarcerated in the Turkish prison system. He describes a system which was designed (or left to its own devices?) to devalue human existence and destroy human dignity. In conditions mildly called appalling, Hayes went through 5 years of sheer soul and bodily torture until his incredible and unlikely escape which spared him life imprisonment.

He himself spares the reader none of all the disturbing details and descriptions as he unravels his nightmarish narrative. The Midnight Express is a book that punches hard at the incarceration system (as prisons in many other parts of the world are similar or worse) and the sheer disregard for human dignity. Credit to Hayes for not trying to redeem himself by claiming wrongful conviction. He accepts that he commited a crime according to that country's law and that he knew he was as he was commiting it. He doesnt accept (to put it again, VERY mildly) the severety of the penalty and the way it was carried out.

It's a book that will no doubt unnerve the reader who's unfamiliar with such literature or who's never given much thought to such issues. It's a scary experience even as an innocent turning of pages and will keep you hostage with its gloomy, borderline deathly and insane atmosphere. It will also provide some serious food for thought about the limits of human perseverence as a whole.

Written in a very direct and engaging style, Hayes proved a talent in writting and if you've read other such books you know that not everyone could achieve the level of directness and the effect of making you feel other the way he did.

Worthy of its fame by any standard. For anyone interested in a similar and perhaps even more disturbing book try the "Damage done" by Warren Fellows.



Rating:
Summary: I was there in Turkey when he was in jail.
Review: This was a rare instance when I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie, although excellent, left me a little empty inside because I needed to know if the whole story had been told correctly. We all know, nine times out of ten, the book version of a movie is usually more accurate, has more detail, more events and incidents, more detail about the characters in the background such as parents etc., and is much more realistic. It was true with this story too! The book did turn out to be much more revealing and I found many incidents in the book which were not in the movie as I'd thought the case would be. The book is about a real life drug smuggling incident which occured in Turkey. Billy Hayes claimed it was the 'first' time he'd ever done such a thing but I have heard differently in the press. Anyway, Billy was caught with a moderate amount of drugs on his body. The same amount found on someone in the USA would probably result in a small fine if it were the person's first offense. That wasn't the case for Billy who after being questioned by the Turkish police for many hours, ended up in the most hellish prison with a wide assortment of inmates. There were even children in the prison who had been caught stealing. The book is a page turner which describes in great detail, the pure hell that Billy goes through as his ordeal unwinds. From his many court appearances to his daily problems of survival at the prison. If this book is true, then Billy went through the worst experience of a lifetime but if he's making the story sound a little more dramatic by telling lies to the reader, then I don't feel sorry for him at all. He broke the law and the law says, you must pay for your crimes. The problem I have with Billy's criminal act was the horrendous sentence he received for his crime for being in the wrong place. I do hope his story is truthful though otherwise, he made a lot of money off of the book and the movie rights from people like us who believed he'd been to hell and back. I've been hearing so many contradictory statements concerning his book that I have been wondering about it. Either way, whether you saw the movie or not, this book is a fantastic, page turner which will keep you on the edge of your seat! Then when you've read the book first (which I wish I'd done), then rent the video and see the movie! Talk about heartstopper!

Rating:
Summary: 5 for movie too!
Review: This was a rare instance when I saw the movie before I read the book. The movie, although excellent, left me a little empty inside because I needed to know if the whole story had been told correctly. We all know, nine times out of ten, the book version of a movie is usually more accurate, has more detail, more events and incidents, more detail about the characters in the background such as parents etc., and is much more realistic. It was true with this story too! The book did turn out to be much more revealing and I found many incidents in the book which were not in the movie as I'd thought the case would be. The book is about a real life drug smuggling incident which occured in Turkey. Billy Hayes claimed it was the 'first' time he'd ever done such a thing but I have heard differently in the press. Anyway, Billy was caught with a moderate amount of drugs on his body. The same amount found on someone in the USA would probably result in a small fine if it were the person's first offense. That wasn't the case for Billy who after being questioned by the Turkish police for many hours, ended up in the most hellish prison with a wide assortment of inmates. There were even children in the prison who had been caught stealing. The book is a page turner which describes in great detail, the pure hell that Billy goes through as his ordeal unwinds. From his many court appearances to his daily problems of survival at the prison. If this book is true, then Billy went through the worst experience of a lifetime but if he's making the story sound a little more dramatic by telling lies to the reader, then I don't feel sorry for him at all. He broke the law and the law says, you must pay for your crimes. The problem I have with Billy's criminal act was the horrendous sentence he received for his crime for being in the wrong place. I do hope his story is truthful though otherwise, he made a lot of money off of the book and the movie rights from people like us who believed he'd been to hell and back. I've been hearing so many contradictory statements concerning his book that I have been wondering about it. Either way, whether you saw the movie or not, this book is a fantastic, page turner which will keep you on the edge of your seat! Then when you've read the book first (which I wish I'd done), then rent the video and see the movie! Talk about heartstopper!

Rating:
Summary: amazing real life page turner
Review: This young man's adventures in a Turkish prison are simply fascinating, and told very well. This book is one of the few that I was sincerely sorry that it had to end. My only complaint is that it is a little too slick, a little too Hollywood-ready. It would be interesting to read an account that showed a little more of the warts-and-all detail of the experience. It's a pity that this is out of print. And in answer to one of the reviewers comments below about what this book says about Turkey, well, in my opiniion, this book is an attack on Turkey. The author has almost nothing good to say about Turkey, and he never loses an opportunity to slag it off. But I am definitely interested in finding books that portray modern Turkey, and other countries in this region, in a more positive light. There never was a region that more needed reabilitating in the world's eyes, than the middle east today, I believe. Another good reason to read this book is to show the difference between it and the popular film that was made of it. It was quite an eye opener to me to find that two of the most horrific and lurid episodes that occur in the movie, do not occur in the book, most notably, the disgusting tongue-biting-off sequence.