Book Reviews
Letters From the Pen
Reviewed by Kevin Kinder
Northwest Arkansas Times Sunday, April 15, 2007
Written with Conviction
Curly MacRed's hair is neither curly nor red. For nearly five years, readers of a weekly Eureka Springs newspaper could be forgiven for thinking otherwise, as a columnist by that name delivered tales and observations submitted from federal penitentiaries in places such as Forrest City and Beaumont, Texas.
In fact, the columnist bears little resemblance to what one might expect from someone named Curly. The real author is tall and slender and his straight gray hair falls into the middle of his back. His name is Dale McCurry. Curly MacRed was made up, but the prison time was all too real. In December 1999, McCurry was sentenced to eight years in a penitentiary for an illegal money-making scheme. During his incarceration, McCurry wrote "Letters from the Pen," a newspaper column in Eureka Springs' Lovely County Citizen. Having put in his time - four years, seven months and four days, but whose counting ?, McCurry said - the Eureka Springs resident is now a free man. Writing the column stirred a dormant passion in him, and McCurry is now employed full time by the newspaper that carried his column. Although "Letters from the Pen" ended the day he was released from jail, the words live on in the form of a book that shares the column's name. In February, Boian Books, a new Eureka-based publishing house, released 242 of McCurry's letters from prison.
Dreaming and scheming
In his life before prison, McCurry wanted to be an author. He dreamed of being Harper Lee after reading "To Kill a Mockingbird." Of course, Lee was a woman, so that would have been tough, McCurry admits, but nonetheless he had the itch to write. He studied journalism and English at Southwest Missouri State University before deciding to attempt a life in the world of business, like his father and grandfathers before him.
For a time, McCurry had a successful environmental business in southwestern Missouri. He had a wife, two children and a house with a porch and a green roof. His business used microbial bacteria to detoxify soils. After obtaining a large contract from the city of Springfield, Mo., to cleanse the landfill there, McCurry sought private investments to help fund the operation. But a personnel change in city government caused his company to fall out of favor with the city, he said, and the work was no longer there. His business was failing, and he knew it. Instead of filing for bankruptcy, though, he chose an illegal alternative. He solicited more money, then repaid the first investors as the new funds came in and repeated the process. Although he didn't know it at the time, he said, there is a name for such activity: a Ponzi scheme, named for an Italian immigrant who pioneered the system in the 1920 s. But he can only coat the situation with so much sugar, McCurry said. He knew what he was doing was illegal. While he insists his initial intentions were pure, he cannot hide what he did after things started to crumble. "It was actually the fact that I did continue after I was doomed to fail. I was living in denial every day," McCurry said. McCurry remembers watching things unravel. He was constantly putting out fires and hoping each day wouldn't be the one when he got caught. Then, in the spring of 1998, he got the call he'd been expecting. He was being investigated. Later, a story about his business appeared on the evening news channel he was watching. Knowing that he would eventually end up in jail, McCurry moved to Eureka Springs that October. It is known as a town of healing, he said, and it seemed like a good opportunity to prepare himself for the time he would spend behind bars. And he began to understand the gravity of what had happened. "I feel bad about the people who lost money, but nobody was hurt more by this than my family," he said. His life continued to fall apart. On Jan. 29, 1999, he and his wife observed their 25 th anniversary, acknowledging together their happy years even as they mutually prepared to file for divorce the next week. Around April of that year, McCurry pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud counts and later, Missouri counts of securities fraud and selling unregistered securities. In court, McCurry entered the plea because, he says now, he actually was guilty. He was sentenced to 71 months for the federal crimes, eight years for the state crimes and ordered to pay so much restitution that only a lottery win could repay it all, he said. On Dec. 16, 1999, McCurry was placed in the Forrest City Federal Correction Complex in East Arkansas, where he would serve a good deal of his two prison terms concurrently.
From behind bars
Just weeks prior to McCurry's incarceration, The Lovely County Citizen started publication in Eureka Springs. McCurry hadn't been in prison for very long before he began receiving copies of the paper from his friends in Eureka Springs. Adopting a whatdo-I-have-to-lose attitude, McCurry pitched an idea to the fledgling paper: He would write a column about his life while serving time. "Letters from the Pen" was born and, told by the federal Bureau of Prisons that he would not be allowed to use his real name, McCurry worked with his newspaper editor to develop the pseudonym Curly MacRed, an anagram of McCurry's name. "They went along with it," he said of the paper. "I had no idea it would last four years." The column apparently intrigued the newspaper's readers. John Rankine, a Citizen photographer who has been with the paper since its inception, remembers people calling the newsroom in disbelief, asking if the columnist was really in prison.
Very few people knew that McCurry was authoring the column. His close friends and those at the newspaper office did, but his true identity was kept secret. Although the column was about many things, there was one thing it wasn't: a sob story. "If I would have written about poor me in prison, it wouldn't have lasted at all," McCurry said. The letters were instead about a man trying to come to terms with the life he had created for himself. "But make no mistake: 'Letters from the Pen' is not about prison life, it is about my life - in prison," McCurry wrote in the book's preface. The columns in the book touch on McCurry's experiences with the odd assortment of men who were also confined at Forrest City or a prison in Beaumont, Texas, where he later stayed. The letters are fictionalized, McCurry said, but are based on real people and events. There is a cast of recurring characters, such as Harley, X, E and Marti, all who make periodic appearances in the columns that McCurry meticulously prepared on a typewriter in the prison library. Each character has a distinct personality and was derived from McCurry's experiences, both inside and outside of custody. Marti was based on a dramatized version of McCurry himself, modeled after the time he spent "trying to become the best damn dishwasher ever" at a Eureka Springs pizza shop. Writing the column came as a companion activity to his two other prison-time pursuits: corresponding with his family through letters - his real journal of the time he spent in prison, he said - and serving as the prison's GED tutor for inmates who had not earned their high school diplomas. He read voraciously and included many of the quotes he found in the columns. The book is also replete with nuggets about current events, offering a glimpse into the past. It discusses the November 2000 presidential elections, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and other events that took place during the time of his incarceration. It also discusses pop culture tidbits such as the Grammys, The Beatles and quotes from musicians. Although there are no epiphanies in the book, it details the recovery of a man word by word. In his Feb. 7, 2002, letter, McCurry acknowledges he is still trying to grasp his situation. "I've been waking up in prison every day for 25 months, 13 days (but who's counting ?) and I still can't grasp the full measure of what it truly means to be shackled to my situation," he wrote. But slowly, McCurry was able to come to terms with his ordeal through writing and reading. It was the cure he needed, he said. When McCurry entered prison, he intended to use it, rather than wallow in it. "It gave me an opportunity to write and get myself back together," he said. The column ended - abruptly - on July 22, 2004. McCurry told his readers there had been restless nights in the jail. "Last night, I was too happy to sleep," he wrote. "Last night I was filled to overflowing with images of reunion I had barely allowed for nearly five years."After four years, seven months and four days of imprisonment (but who's counting ?), McCurry was going home. He could again allow himself to think about life on the outside "and a long-term future, if not void of heartache, at least heavy with hope and unshackled freedom," he wrote. He had been paroled on the state charges and had served enough time to be considered for a release on good behavior for the federal crime.
Free to do as he pleases
After spending about six months in a halfway house in Springfield, Mo., McCurry became a free man on Jan. 18, 2005. When it came time to find a new job, McCurry knew another business venture wasn't the way to go. His time behind bars had confirmed for him what he had always wanted to be: a writer. Just two weeks after his release and return to Eureka Springs, McCurry took a job as a reporter for the Lovely County Citizen. A year and a half later, he was named the paper's editor. The role didn't suit him well, he admits. Throughout his time in prison, he told himself he wouldn't enter a rat race, and the editor's job started to suck away his time. He opted for less stress and left the job to produce the paper's special sections instead.
As a recovering alcoholic, McCurry is hesitant to say he is fully mended. He learned from dealing with alcohol abuse that deciding you're fully cured is a sure way to fail again. He has been sober since 1984, and, he says with a self-deprecating laugh, is no longer committing crimes. He's now trying to rebuild his life. He had nothing when he was released from jail. He now has a place to live and is in contact with his family. And he's finished trying to hide from his past. The book is affirmation of that and so is the way that he has pledged to live his life. McCurry is no longer a private man, both in profession and mannerisms. "I got there with my secrets. It was the same thing when I was drinking before. When I have a secret, I have a problem," he said. When considered as a whole, the letters he wrote in prison further explain that philosophy, McCurry said. "It's about owning ourselves, owning our situations... It's the real secret to making sure addresses and situations don't define us," he said. McCurry knows what he wants now, and he is living a happy life in Eureka Springs. His new career choice, he said, was validated when the column was originally published and again when upstart Eureka Springs publisher Boian Books compiled them for the book. McCurry bristles at naming his specific goals for the future, even at the prospect of writing another book. He did have goals in the past: money, a nice home and a fancy life. He knows where those dreams led him. He will continue writing, he knows, but isn't sure what. He's happy at the newspaper and with the thought that his letters to family members might also turn themselves into a book. He's better at fiction than nonfiction, he said, and so there might be opportunities there. He has been free to write anything - and under his own name - for the past two years, two months and 28 days (but who's counting ?).
