The 25th Man (1)

The 25th Man
Ed Morrell

I read an except from this book when I was in Jr. High and never forgot it. It was about an inmate in St Quentin that had out of body experiences after being tortured. Recently it crossed my mind again and I was able to track it down at a library.
The book was different than I thought. The story starts back in the late 1800's and a lot of the story is about how he got in trouble and arrested, his time in jail etc. This is a true story and Ed Morrell went on to champion prison reform, so a lot of this book is about the conditions and experiences he had.... all of which were horrific. Toward the end of the book we finally get to the part that I recalled. A new warden would strap him into a straight jacket and leave him for days, during this time we could have out of body experiences, and later went on to complete some of the visions he had.
Over all I really can't recommend it, I read it because it was something I remembered, and while parts of it were quite interesting from a historical perspective, overall the book got bogged down in the story of his capture. As a side note, Jack London wrote a fictional account based on Ed's story called Star Rover, perhaps that would be more entertaining.