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It is never pleasant for an author to receive a bad review. Various emotions surface and one of them is normally anger. It is to be hoped that reviewer, Martin Winchester does not live in the same town as the author whose book he has just published a review about in The Monitor, because the author of the work appears to have a problem with anger management.

The book in question is Fluffing the Concrete by Mark Dryden. To cut a long story short, Mr Dryden was buying beads in Fez and had a small disagreement with a Moroccan man who was wanting to show him "the best leather in Fez". Mr Dryden lost his cool and beat the man unconscious. In prison the next morning the guards told him his victim has died.

The story of Dryden's time in prison is written as an attempt at humour. However this is one of those books that reverse the old adage about the pen and the sword - or in this case fists. Mr Dryden's fists are far stronger than his pen.

Mark Winchester gives the book a major thumbs-down, saying - What follows is intended to be a how-to guide to surviving prison and applying those lessons to difficulties in life, but the author gets caught up with trying to be cute and loses most of the drama that must have surrounded him.

Dryden uses his karate skills to impress his cellmates and ward off any advances or assaults. He tries to create his own intelligence-gathering circle of friends, and attempts to harden his stomach and bowels to the goat butt soup that inmates receive as their daily ration. Within a week, Dryden learns those guards on his first morning were only playing mind games with him and his victim is indeed alive and breathing. A quick appearance before a magistrate and an even quicker promise to exit the country resulted in his release — an anticlimactic end to a story that never really gets off the ground.

The book is filled with some pencil drawings of amusing scenes in prison — if there are such — but only serve to cheapen the author’s experience. Now a motivational speaker and former writer for Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Dryden is more than happy to tell his story to anyone willing to ante up a few bucks. Save your money. If you want drama and suspense, go rent Midnight Express. If you want some laughs behind bars, try The Longest Yard.


Tags: Moroccan Morocco Fes, Maghreb news