You can't win - jack black

A major influence on William S.

Burroughs and other Beat writers, this lost classic was written by Jack Black, a drifter and small-time criminal.

Born in 1872, Black hit the road at the age of 16 and spent most of his life as a vagabond.

In this plain-spoken but colorful 1926 memoir, he recaptures a hobo underworld of the early twentieth century, a time when it was possible to pass anonymously from town to town.

Blacks firsthand accounts of hopping trains, burglaries, prison, and drug addiction offer a compelling portrait of this seedy side of life a hundred years ago.