The Life Inside

The wisdom plus lived experience on display in this book are by turns enriching, sobering and at times, heartrending. A tale centering on our inner critic or executioner and how to stifle its constant sniping. A wonder.Lenny Henry

Andy West powerfully interweaves an account of teaching philosophy in prison with his own family’s history of imprisonment, creating an intellectually thrilling memoir of freedom and constraint. West reminds us that thinking, debating, and learning are not luxuries but crucial for survival, urgent inquiries into who we are.Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body

Andy West’s tense and intimate book is an education - a completely unsentimental and, for that reason, a compassionate and moving one. At its heart is an appeal against the life sentence handed down by Larkin in ‘This Be The Verse’. The Life Inside deserves the widest possible readership.Geoff Dyer

Andy West bears witness to life inside prison, weaving philosophical questions about free will, forgiveness, guilt and shame, with family history and the realities of incarceration. Beautifully written – honest, painful, absurd and sometimes joyful – The Life Inside reveals how people survive.Caitlin Davies, author of Queens of the Underworld