Beggars of Life

Jim Tully’s "A Hobo Autobiography" is no infantile bourgeois tourist diary; it is a raw, brutal document of an era. Along with the author, who is nearly identical to his own protagonist, you will sleep in filthy flophouses, hop moving freight trains, run from the police, steal Dostoevsky novels from libraries, and comment on the absolute bottom of American life with tragicomic cynicism. Paradoxically, this book is also a unique success story and a twisted embodiment of the American Dream. In the end, Tully manages to monetize his hardships: he becomes a famous writer, and his magnum opus, a manifesto of the vagabond lifestyle, is adapted by Hollywood.