Book Review: Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom
by Rubin Carter and Ken Klonsky
Publication Date: Jan 01, 2011
List Price: $26.95
Format: Hardcover, 320 pages
Classification: Nonfiction
ISBN13: 9781569765685
Imprint: Chicago Review Press
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
Parent Company: Chicago Review Press
Read a Description of Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness to Freedom
Book Reviewed by Kam Williams
"You may have heard of me, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, as
having been a professional prizefighter. That, along with having been a
wrongly convicted person who had to spend twenty years behind bars for a
crime he did not commit, is a fact…
I am not angry or bitter about my past or present circumstances. I do not
worry about money or about not being able to pay my bills… I KNOW that I
will be all right because I am connected to the source from which all life
arises…
Whatever is taken from you by those who abandon principle, you will
ultimately win back through your priceless understanding that life has
meaning. You will understand that nothing is more valuable than the love of
the Spirit, and that each individual possesses that Spirit."
—Excerpted from the Introduction (pgs. 1, 22 & 23)
Rubin "Hurricane" Carter was rising up the ranks of the middleweight
division in 1966 when he was arrested for a triple murder he didn’t commit.
His once-promising boxing career ended abruptly upon his conviction, and he
proceeded to serve the next 19 years in prison, 10 in solitary confinement.
He was finally able to clear his name after becoming the subject of hit song
by Bob Dylan which in turn helped turn his case into something of a cause
célèbre. Denzel Washington subsequently earned an Oscar nomination for his
dignified portrayal of Carter in "The Hurricane," a bio-pic chronicling
Rubin’s legal ordeal from being framed through his ultimate vindication.
But it’s been over a quarter-century since Hurricane was exonerated in 1985,
and people might like to know that he has devoted most of his life since to
overturning the convictions of similar victims of the criminal justice
system. He is currently the CEO of Innocence International, although he has
also worked with The Innocence Project and served as Executive Director of
the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.
However, his new autobiography, "Eye of the Hurricane: My Path from Darkness
to Freedom," might strike some as a bit of a departure for a man so closely
associated with prisoners’ rights. For here, the 73 year-old Carter focuses
his attention on the notion of breaking the mental as opposed to the
physical bonds which might limit anyone.
It’s not that he’s backing off one iota from his indictment of the nation’s
economic and racial biases which have led to the incarceration of over two
million of the nation’s ignorant and poor. Rather, he simply shares the
compassionate insight cultivated during his own experience while in the
state pen that one can actually achieve a priceless form of freedom via
spiritual enlightenment even while still locked up.
Introspection and meditation as the 21st Century equivalents of sneaking the
proverbial file in a cake to a buddy behind bars.