Title: Labyrinth: Volume 1
Author: Edward Palmore
Publisher: Toplink Publishing, LLC
ISBN: 978-1949169096
Pages: 690
Genre: Fiction
Reviewed by: Susan Milam
Hollywood Book Reviews
Labyrinth: Volume 1 is one of many books written by Dr. Edward Palmore during his long incarceration in a Georgia prison. The book relates Mark Hope’s fictional sojourn through the same prison system. During his journey, Mark grapples with his sexuality, as he begins to understand the true meanings of friendship and love. In addition, under the gentle tutelage of an older prisoner, Mark learns about his forbears who blazed pathways for men such as him.
Early one morning, seven-year-old Mark Hope and his half-sister Thelma Lou trek across the muddy yard of their home looking for their mother, Sally Ann. The youngsters discover her dismembered body in the barn. Sally Ann, a prostitute, has been murdered, presumably by one of her johns who then cut her limb from limb with a Black & Decker chainsaw. Mark calls the police while Thelma Lou makes breakfast for their other siblings. The fifth of Sally Ann’s seven children, Mark is the son of Lance Mark Hope, Sally Ann’s brother-in-law. Mark is conceived when Sally Ann becomes Lance Mark’s surrogate wife during the years that Sally Ann’s sister is dying of cancer. Lance Mark abandons his surrogate family when Mark is three. After their mother’s funeral, the children are split up with Mark going to live in Boston with Mrs. Becker, one of Sally Ann’s godmothers. Thus, a lifelong pattern begins of Mark being torn away from those he loves. The pattern will continue when Mark is sent to prison after being set-up by a former girlfriend.
Given the book’s structure and appealing but somewhat coarse protagonist, Labyrinth, Volume 1 is in many ways a picaresque tale. However, while Mark is somewhat dishonest, he is in many ways incredibly naïve and almost pure in his dealings with those he meets during his years in prison. Although Mark is initiated into a gang as a young teenager, while incarcerated, he goes out of his way not to commit violence against rival gang members. In addition, he shows unexpected kindness toward a physically disabled inmate for whom he becomes a caregiver. Before going to prison, Mark has a homosexual encounter with a close friend who is openly gay, but Mark refuses to accept that part of him. Even after multiple homosexual relationships in prison, Mark continues to think of himself as a man who has homosexual sex because of where he is, not who he is.
Dr. Palmore adeptly portrays Mark’s life both in and out of prison. Mark’s voice and the voices of the many people he meets along the way ring with authenticity, whether they be elderly women of color or evil prison gangsters. Dr. Palmore explains much of the gang and prison slang but the words he doesn’t decode are easily understood through context. Life inside the prison is at times brutal, at times boring and at times uplifting. The book contains numerous sex scenes, particularly in its later pages. The multiple sexual encounters illustrate Mark’s evolution. With each relationship, he comes closer and closer to accepting his sexual orientation, and he learns more and more about himself as a person, as a friend and as a lover. When he meets fellow inmate Dr. David Levenson in the last third of the book, Mark begins to evolve intellectually, too. Mark’s introduction to the works of James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, as well as an unexpected development elsewhere in the prison population, set up what appear to be two of the major plotlines in Labyrinth, Volume 2.
Caution: Labyrinth contains profanity, graphic heterosexual and homosexual sex and intense violence including rape.
Labyrinth: Volume 1 starts out as a standard extremely hard knocks coming of age story, however, it soon takes on deeper and more provocative themes. With its rough language and even rougher sex, the book isn’t for everyone. The text will challenge the preconceptions of many readers. Still, those who are willing to enter a different world with an open mind will find themselves rooting for Mark as he makes his way through the Georgia prison system.