God of the Rodeo: The Quest for Redemption in Louisiana's Angola Prison

In God of the Rodeo, he introduces readers to rodeo champion Johnny Brooks, a 41-year-old "lifer" incarcerated for a murder he committed at the age of 18, who is engaged to marry a civilian woman he met at the rodeo. He's also the most promising candidate for parole. There's Terry Hawkins, a man who tries to seek salvation for the violent murder of his boss, the grotesque details of which haunt him, and Danny Fabre, plagued with comically large ears he desperately wants corrected by plastic surgery almost as much as he wishes to learn to read past the 6th-grade level. Perhaps the most striking figure is the stern, spiritual warden, Burl Cain, a self-proclaimed prophet who genuinely believes in redemption for even the most violent offenders.

Written with the eloquence of a poet and the perceptive eyes of a painter, Bergner's extremely well wrought, unforgettable book offers a rare glimpse into the hearts and souls of men who commit violence, finding hope and courage where few dare to look, without ever losing sight of the horrific crimes that landed them in America's most isolated prison. --Kera Bolonik

Product Description
Never before had Daniel Bergner seen a spectacle as bizarre as the one he had come to watch that Sunday in October. Murderers, rapists, and armed robbers were competing in the annual rodeo at Angola, the grim maximum-security penitentiary in Louisiana. The convicts, sentenced to life without parole, were thrown, trampled, and gored by bucking bulls and broncos before thousands of cheering spectators. But amid the brutality of this gladiatorial spectacle Bergner caught surprising glimpses of exaltation, hints of triumphant skill.

The incongruity of seeing hope where one would expect only hopelessness, self-control in men who were there because they'd had none, sparked an urgent quest in him. Having gained unlimited and unmonitored access, Bergner spent an unflinching year inside the harsh world of Angola. He forged relationships with seven prisoners who left an indelible impression on him. There's Johnny Brooks, seemingly a latter-day Stepin Fetchit, who, while washing the warden's car, longs to be a cowboy and to marry a woman he meets on the rodeo grounds. Then there's Danny Fabre, locked up for viciously beating a woman to death, now struggling to bring his reading skills up to a sixth-grade level. And Terry Hawkins, haunted nightly by the ghost of his victim, a ghost he tries in vain to exorcise in a prison church that echoes with the cries of convicts talking in tongues.

Looming front and center is Warden Burl Cain, the larger-than-life ruler of Angola who quotes both Jesus and Attila the Hun, declares himself a prophet, and declaims that redemption is possible for even the most depraved criminal. Cain welcomes Bergner in, and so begins a journey that takes the author deep into a forgotten world and forces him to question his most closely held beliefs. The climax of his story is as unexpected as it is wrenching.
        
Rendered in luminous prose, God of the Rodeo is an exploration of the human spirit, yielding in the process a searing portrait of a place that will be impossible to forget and a group of men, guilty of unimaginable crimes, desperately seeking a moment of grace.


From the Hardcover edition.

(1)"There are countries in which public establishments are considered by the government as its own personal affair, so that it admits persons to them only according to its pleasure, just as a proprietor refuses at his pleasure admission into his house; they are a sort of administrative sanctuaries, into which no profane person can penetrate. These establishments, on the contrary, in the United States, are considered as belonging to all. The prisons are open to everyone who chooses to inspect them ad every visiter may inform himself of the order which regulates the interior." - Gustave de Beaumont and Alexis de Tocqueville, 1833

(2)"The United States Supreme Court, in a series of decisions going back to the 1970s, had helped to ensure that the nation's prisons stayed isolated and unknown, that criminals, once sent away, could be forgotten. . . .

" . . . A recent federal law, the Prison Litigation Reform Act, driven through Congress to ensure that incarceration not be too costly to the taxpayers or too joyful for the convicts, will likely free Angola from federal oversight within the coming months." - Daniel Bergner, 1998

Bergner handles, by his own account, many difficult situations with wisdom and grace. He proves his points and labels his speculations as such. He is neither cynical nor gullible. My one complaint is that he includes a passage toward the end (Chapter 15) in which he simultaneously preaches vengeance and quotes Jesus, apparently oblivious to the irony. Proclaiming any moral feat (in this case love of an enemy) impossible is always a moral disgrace. However great the majority of Americans who are unable to overcome the thirst for vengeance that Bergner attributes to all people, there is a minority being ignored, erased from the "natural" and "normal." This attitude is to blame for much of the horror depicted in Bergner's book.

January 1999


Just Misses the Mark!   February 24, 2000
Mcgivern Owen L (NY, NY USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful

"God of the Rodeo" had the potential to be an outstanding story of life at the Louisiana State Prison known as Angola. The story is told from the inmate's viewpoint and mostly takes their sides.(How can you not like Littell?) The problem is Bergner needed an editor to organize his story. I would have liked to read more about some of the inmates and their families and much less about the author and his run-ins with Warden Cain. Within these limitations, I still recommend the book. It makes for an interesting gift idea!


Truthful account of Angola from one has visited there....   November 8, 1999
A. McCLure (Vidalia, LA;Native New Orleanian)
9 out of 12 found this review helpful

This is an excellently writen book I would reccomend to anyone interested in prison life and the forces that compel one to live on despite a sentence of life behind bars.I recently visited Angola in October as a law student and found the place to be most intriguing. Mr. Bergner's account of everyhting I saw, including death row, is quite accurate. Also, his rendition of Louisiana politics is right on the mark. A really good read I would reccomend to anyone.


An Exceptional and Important Book   May 17, 1999
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

God of the Rodeo is an exceptional book. Its novelistic rendering of the gripping stories of men who will spend the rest of their lives in Louisiana's notorious Angola prison results in an unsentimental -- but extremely moving -- story of life behind bars. Without being pedantic or political, the book forces us to confront the fact that while we have a right as a society to incarcerate these men for the brutal crimes they have committed, we have a moral obligation not to ignore them. The book also offers fascinating portraits of ministers who are among the few willing to devote time and attention to caring about these men. Whatever your view of our criminal justice system, God of the Rodeo is an important book to read. Moreover, its excellent writing makes this book a pleasure to read as well.