A great collection of stories by a prisoner sentenced for a home invasion. Themes are addiction and prison life. I enjoyed it

An interesting and well-written collection of short stories by an author who is currently serving life in prison. A vivid glimpse into life behind bars, and the people who find themselves there. An engaging read.

The Greybar Hotel is a book I feel everyone must read as it offers some amazing insight into what prison life is like for those on the inside especially for long stretches of time. I found one story heartbreaking in particular and it is about a man who makes random phone calls just to hear the outside world, you really feel his desperation and pain.

I'm giving this book 3 starts not because is a bad/mediocre book, but because it was not my type of book. So, let me get this straight: I do recommend the book, but it's not for everyone. You have to be on a special mood to read jail stories. The writing is beautiful. The stories are sad. They are about lost, hope, despair. This is, overall, a very human book.

I was absolutely not expecting this book and it was a spectacular surprise. A raw, yet monotone tale, I found it a mild rendition of Thompson's gonzo which I thoroughly enjoyed. I recommend this book without hesitation.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't finish this one. I was ready to be done at 20%, but forced myself to continue. By 30% I was ready to be totally done. So, DNF at 30%. I was just so bored :(

This turned out to be a very stunning collection of short stories about life behind bars.
Written by a current inmate who serves a life sentence without parole, these short tales offer a rare glimpse at a world which hopefully most of us will never have to experience.
What does it feel like to live in the Graybar Hotel, where you are locked away from the outside world, where simple things like just a short walk in the park are out of reach?

A well written and fascinating array of short stories. Highly recommended.

When a book stays with you long after you’ve read the last sentence, you know you’ve found a good one! I read The Graybar Hotel by Curtis Dawkins in less than 24 hours and have spend the last 24 hours ruminating on the collection of short stories.

We have a maximum security prison that sits just outside of our town; it’s like a city on a hill. On the darkest of nights, you can see the orange glow of the prison lights illuminating the bottom side of the clouds. When you walk into the local stores, you are constantly met by men and women in their correctional officer uniforms. The prison is never far from the minds of this town’s .

As I watched the fireworks explode over town last night, I thought about the freedoms we enjoy as citizens of this country. I was free to sit on a grassy hilltop to enjoy the cool breeze and the beautiful explosions of color. I was free to hold my children tight – to watch their faces as the pops of colors changed from red, to white, to blue. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw that orange glow and immediately thought about the men inside that weren’t enjoying these same freedoms. Could they see the fireworks from their small window to the outside world? Or were they too far away? Or were they on the wrong side of the building?

My thoughts quickly turned to the stories in The Graybar Hotel. While the stories are a collection of fictional stories, I couldn’t help but think that there’s got to be a lot of truth within those sentences, too. Dawkins humanized his characters and managed to instill a sense of empathy and compassion for the men and women who spend their days and nights behind bars. The reader is introduced to many characters – Mickey, Peanut, Mo – who stitch themselves right onto your heartstrings.

The writing is lovely, and I’m looking forward to future writings from Dawkins. At the end of the book, he states that all proceeds from the sales of this book will be put into his children’s college funds. There’s something I really admire in that – even though he’s away, he’s doing his best to be supportive of his family (in a good and honorable way too, I might add).

Thanks to Net Galley and Scribner for the digital review copy – all opinions are my own.

“All people are stories” and Dawkins give us some of these people, these stories, in a manner that grabbed me and kept me riveted and which made me think whilst smiling, being sad,
being angry and wishing for a different reality. He sets aside the usual prison macho fare and delves in deeper so touching the how and the why and the consequences.

None of the inmates have that likeable trait of being innocent of the crime they are in for. That would have made this an easier read for me. But Dawkins does not take that easier more hypocritical road. Instead his people like him are people who are not innocent. Still they are all people with stories. People who believed that they could be the ones to make it through while walking through the razor wire but the wire wins and they bleed and their victims bleed and the sheer bloody waste of it makes me so sad and angry at the loss of the victims, at the pain and loss of all the families involved and the loss of the inmates themselves.

How life sort of stops, no more significant memories being made. So the time inside is spent reliving, repeating pasts memories, an endless cycle of one's glorious and more often than not inglorious moments. Where insignificant details gain undue importance.

Disappearing. First they are put away from society, disappearing from our view. And then they also disappear from themselves, from their lives, as the connections that tether them to life are cut one by one. So then we get the story of the prisoner who kept calling people call collect just to hear someone from the outside. Or the story of the inmate who could make up a whole story complete with conversations just by seeing someone on the tv. Or we see Clyde almost feeling like an alien when he is returned to life.

A great piece of writing that took me to the place I hope that I never end up in, in real life but still it is better that I know about, because people do end up there. Ok it is easy to say it’s their fault, their mistakes, but a wound on a body affects the whole and we must try and do better. Some sort of responsibility rests on society as well.

I would like to read more Dawkins of course.

A comprehensive collection of short stories, which ultimately detail the fellow inmates lives.
coming from a series of voices often ignored and cast aside, this book demands to be read!

I have been a big fan of Orange is the New Black and this was reminiscent of the different perspective from an inmate's point of view. I usually don't like short stories, but this one was pretty interesting since there were so many different characters and story lines. I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend to a friend.

A gripping story thst I really enjoyed. Wanted yo leave my review but amazon won't let me yet.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I enjoyed the author's writing style and would definitely read anything else written by him.

I found myself unable to detach from this collection of short stories. Each story flowed so well into the next story that it almost reads like a novel rather than a short story collection.

Every single story in this book is captivating and beautifully written. Dawkins presents the reader with a strange bunch of intruiging characters. All of the stories are set in prison which accounts for the title The Graybar Hotel.

Even now hours after finishing the last story I sit here thinking about all of the characters. That is the sign of a great writer. These characters have wormed their way into my brain and I have no intention of releasing them. I suppose you could say they are all serving life without parole in my imagination.