Book excerpt: News items and events spanning 3 years of the notorious Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. In the pages of this book you will get a taste of what life was like for the last residences of this 113-year-old relic of the convict-lease system. Men from the inside produced a publication that outlasted the prison and has been preserved here for your review.That's not to say everything you read in these pages will be exactly what it seems. The Mountain Review went out on a limb now and then, but it was a government document, a censored publication - "the man" got to read it long before the prisoners did. That is why you may have to read between the lines as you journey through these publications; many of the real stories are a little deeper than what is apparent at first glance.What will be apparent is that not every person in prison is the type of character you see on television (though there are a few). Prisoners still make much hay about being a "convict," but the ideas on how a person in the system should act are more andmore convoluted everyday. What it comes down to is a split between the decent and the devious, and the majority who are much of both.Fortunately for me, in the almost 10 years I worked on this publication, the decent seemed to be the ones with the most tosay. We hope that this book serves as a testament that there are a few good people who have put themselves in really bad placesand a handful more that realized their mistakes and are trying to turn it around. The proceeds from this book will help folks likethese make the inside a better place and help insure that the ones who get out never return.