Teach the Free Man

"Peter Malae is the real deal. He's like a young Nelson Algren or Richard
Wright, one of those writers who can hit with both hands. And his book is
more than an auspicious debut; it's as good a collection of stories as I've
read in years."

"Rather than physical descriptions of San Quentin and other penal landmarks, readers will find brilliant psychological portraits of convicts, ex-cons, their families and prison workers. The real prison, Malae suggests, is the 'institutional me-tracked mind.'" (Metro Newspapers, Silicon Valley) "Inmates, their families, parolees, and prison workers are the subjects of this gritty, compelling collection that reveals a parallel world most readers are fortunate to have avoided encountering. It puts a human face on violence, hardship, and suffering in the name of justice, making them that much harder to ignore." (The Story Prize) "Most of the characters in Peter Malae's Teach the Free Man have managed to mismanage their lives, but what counts here is that Malae handles their voices so that their language—the slang, the jargon, the argot—rings true and draws us wholly into their hard luck, often violent, worlds. These are stories from borders of society and we need to thanks Mr. Malae for delivering them to us." (author of Bring Your Legs with You) "The characters in these stories may be marginalized, but the stories themselves are the work of a talented author who deserves a wide audience.... (A)s good fiction must, they broaden our understanding of what it is to be human." (Rain Taxi) "The notes don't tell us whether Malae has been there. If not, he has been studying prison culture, hard, for a long time. And he has it down perfectly. He knows how to tie you into a story, make you feel trapped, like you are doing time too, with all these cons around you, so pissed off, so liable to explode at any moment." (The Folio) "At his best, Malae incorporates colloquial language into gripping, tension-filled episodes to reveal the inner workings of a complicated social structure.... In his depictions of incarcerated life and his development of believable voices, Malae shows promise." (Publishers Weekly)