Go-Boy!
9780070825352
Go-Boy! Memoirs of a Life Behind Bars is an autobiography by Roger Caron, written while incarcerated at Collins Bay Institution, in which he chronicles two decades of crime and prison escapes. The book, includes a foreword by Canadian author Pierre Berton, and was published in Canada by McGraw-Hill Ryerson on hardcover in 1978. The paperback iteration includes an introduction by Canadian author Ron Corbett, which was released in 2003 by Hushion House Publishing. Go-Boy! won the 1978 Governor General's Literary Award for English-language non-fiction.
Backstory
"Go-Boy! Go-Boy!" is prison slang for a runner and chanted by other inmates as encouragement during an escape attempt.[1][2]
In his book, Caron gives a personal account of his life behind bars. Roger "Mad Dog" Caron, was a Canadian bank robber. For robbing 75 banks, he spent 24 years in jail, 12 of them in solitary confinement. He escaped prison on 13 different occasions.[3]
Synopsis
The book is a gritty and often brutal account of prison life. It begins on the morning of October 17, 1954, when Caron at age 16, leaves home for the first time, scared and shackled on a reformatory bus called the Black Maria, on his way to the Guelph Reformatory.
Caron writes of himself: "Everything that could happen to a person in prison–everything that could be done to someone–has been done to me."
Awards
Go-Boy! received the 1978 Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction.[4]
Adaptations
In September 2004, Canadian film and television production company Paradox Pictures announced that it had secured the rights to Go-Boy! and was already working on a screenplay. A month later, Go-Boy! was entered into a pitch competition at the Raindance Film Festival. The panel of judges, which included screenwriter Neil Jordan (The Crying Game), and the producer of Bend It Like Beckham, voted it first runner up out of 29 other submissions.[5]
The 75-minute feature-length documentary film Go-Boy! Memories of A Life Behind Bars, which chronicles the physical and psychological effects of the prison system as seen through Caron's eyes, was released by Paradox Pictures. It premiered as the closing night film at the Kingston Canadian Film Festival in March 2019. It was screened at the Orlando Film Festival in October 2019, and at the Windsor International Film Festival in November 2019, where at both screenings, was nominated for "Best Documentary Feature" and for "The Insight Award".[6]
The film which took 10 years to produce, was opening night screening in Caron's hometown of Cornwall Ontario, at the Aultsville Filmfest in January 2020. In attendance were Caron's sister Sue MacGregor, and producer Rob Lindsay, who was 15 years old when he first read the book. In creating the film, he used archival footage and present-day interviews, and stated “I tried to be fair to both sides, (chronicling both Caron’s accomplishments and his notorious criminal side).”[4] In Canada, the film first aired on April 9, 2021 on the CBC Documentary Channel.[7]
Reception
Go-Boy! which received widespread acclaim for its insights into prison life, sold over 600,000 copies.[4] Caron received considerable recognition, including praise from then Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau as being a "great Canadian".[8]
References
- ^ Caron, Roger (1978). Go-Boy!. Canada: McGraw-Hill Ryerson. Dust jacket. ISBN 978-0176007867.
- ^ ""Damn good bank robber" was a lousy escapee". The Sydney Morning Herald. July 11, 2012. Archived from the original on August 19, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2021.
- ^ "Go-Boy! tells the extraordinary true story of Canada's most notorious escape artist – brioux.tv". Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
- ^ a b c Hambleton, Todd (January 24, 2020). "Filmfest kicks off with notorious Cornwall robber Roger Caron". Standard-Freeholder. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
- ^ "News". Paradox Pictures. October 6, 2004. Archived from the original on February 15, 2006.
- ^ "GoBoy Screenings". Paradox Pictures. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
- ^ "GO-BOY! Memories of a Life Behind Bars". Documentary Channel (Canadian TV channel). Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
- ^ Peerenboom, Greg (April 13, 2012). "'Go Boy' author dies". Toronto Sun. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 17, 2021.
- v
- t
- e
- Thomas Beattie Roberton, TBR: Newspaper Pieces (1936)
- Stephen Leacock, My Discovery of the West (1937)
- John Murray Gibbon, Canadian Mosaic (1938)
- Laura Salverson, Confessions of an Immigrant's Daughter (1939)
- J. F. C. Wright, Slava Bohu (1940)
- Emily Carr, Klee Wyck (1941)
- Bruce Hutchison, The Unknown Country (1942)
- Edgar McInnis, The Unguarded Frontier (1942)
- E. K. Brown, On Canadian Poetry (1943)
- John Robins, The Incomplete Anglers (1943)
- Dorothy Duncan, Partner in Three Worlds (1944)
- Edgar McInnis, The War: Fourth Year (1944)
- Ross Munro, Gauntlet to Overlord (1945)
- Evelyn M. Richardson, We Keep a Light (1945)
- Frederick Phillip Grove, In Search of Myself (1946)
- Arthur R. M. Lower, Colony to Nation (1946)
- William Sclater, Haida (1947)
- Robert MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada (1947)
- Thomas Head Raddall, Halifax, Warden of the North (1948)
- C. P. Stacey, The Canadian Army, 1939-1945 (1948)
- Hugh MacLennan, Cross-country (1949)
- Robert MacGregor Dawson, Democratic Government in Canada (1949)
- Marjorie Wilkins Campbell, The Saskatchewan (1950)
- W. L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (1950)
- Frank MacKinnon, The Progressive Party in Canada (1951)
- Josephine Phelan, The Ardent Exile (1951)
- Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Young Politician (1952)
- Bruce Hutchison, The Incredible Canadian (1952)
- J. M. S. Careless, Canada, A Story of Challenge (1953)
- N. J. Berrill, Sex and the Nature of Things (1953)
- Hugh MacLennan, Thirty and Three (1954)
- Arthur R. M. Lower, This Most Famous Stream (1954)
- N. J. Berrill, Man's Emerging Mind (1955)
- Donald G. Creighton, John A. Macdonald, The Old Chieftain (1955)
- Pierre Berton, The Mysterious North (1956)
- Joseph Lister Rutledge, Century of Conflict (1956)
- Thomas H. Raddall, The Path of Destiny (1957)
- Bruce Hutchison, Canada: Tomorrow's Giant (1957)
- Pierre Berton, Klondike (1958)
- Joyce Hemlow, The History of Fanny Burney (1958)
- [No award] (1959)
- Frank Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (1960)
- T. A. Goudge, The Ascent of Life (1961)
- Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
- J.M.S. Careless, Brown of the Globe (1963)
- Phyllis Grosskurth, John Addington Symonds (1964)
- James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada (1965)
- George Woodcock, The Crystal Spirit: A Study of George Orwell (1966)
- Norah Story, The Oxford Companion to Canadian History and Literature (1967)
- Mordecai Richler, Hunting Tigers Under Glass (1968)
- [No award] (1969)
- [No award] (1970)
- Pierre Berton, The Last Spike (1971)
- [No award] (1972)
- Michael Bell, Painters in a New Land (1973)
- Charles Ritchie, The Siren Years (1974)
- Marion MacRae and Anthony Adamson, Hallowed Walls (1975)
- Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History (1976)
- F. R. Scott, Essays on the Constitution (1977)
- Roger Caron, Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars (1978)
- Maria Tippett, Emily Carr (1979)
- Robert Bothwell and William Kilbourn, C.D. Howe (1979)
- Larry Pratt and John Richards, Prairie Capitalism (1979)
- Jeffrey Simpson, Discipline of Power: The Conservative Interlude and the Liberal Restoration (1980)
- George Calef, Caribou and the Barren-Land (1981)
- Christopher Moore, Louisbourg Portraits: Life in an Eighteenth- Century Garrison Town (1982)
- Jeffery Williams, Byng of Vimy: General and Governor General (1983)
- Sandra Gwyn, The Private Capital: Ambition and Love in the Age of Macdonald and Laurier (1984)
- Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (1985)
- Northrop Frye, Northrop Frye on Shakespeare (1986)
- Michael Ignatieff, The Russian Album (1987)
- Anne Collins, In the Sleep Room (1988)
- Robert Calder, Willie: The Life of W. Somerset Maugham (1989)
- Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall, Trudeau and Our Times (1990)
- Robert Hunter and Robert Calihoo, Occupied Canada: A Young White Man Discovers His Unsuspected Past (1991)
- Maggie Siggins, Revenge of the Land: A Century of Greed, Tragedy and Murder on a Saskatchewan Farm (1992)
- Karen Connelly, Touch the Dragon (1993)
- John Livingston, Rogue Primate: An Exploration of Human Domestication (1994)
- Rosemary Sullivan, Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen (1995)
- John Ralston Saul, The Unconscious Civilization (1996)
- Rachel Manley, Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood (1997)
- David Adams Richards, Lines on the Water: A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (1998)
- Marq de Villiers, Water (1999)
- Nega Mezlekia, Notes from the Hyena's Belly (2000)
- Thomas Homer-Dixon, The Ingenuity Gap (2001)
- Andrew Nikiforuk, Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil (2002)
- Margaret MacMillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (2003)
- Roméo Dallaire, Shake Hands With the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (2004)
- John Vaillant, The Golden Spruce: A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed (2005)
- Ross King, The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism (2006)
- Karolyn Smardz Frost, I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007)
- Christie Blatchford, Fifteen Days: Stories of Bravery, Friendship, Life and Death from Inside the New Canadian Army (2008)
- M. G. Vassanji, A Place Within: Rediscovering India (2009)
- Allan Casey, Lakeland: Journeys into the Soul of Canada (2010)
- Charles Foran, Mordecai: The Life and Times (2011)
- Ross King, Leonardo and the Last Supper (2012)
- Sandra Djwa, Journey with No Maps: A Life of P.K. Page (2013)
- Michael John Harris, The End of Absence: Reclaiming What We’ve Lost in a World of Constant Connection (2014)
- Mark L. Winston, Bee Time: Lessons from the Hive (2015)
- Bill Waiser, A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905 (2016)
- Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State (2017)
- Darrel J. McLeod, Mamaskatch: A Cree Coming of Age' (2018)
- Don Gillmor, To the River: Losing My Brother (2019)
- Madhur Anand, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (2020)
- Sadiqa de Meijer, alfabet/alphabet: a memoir of a first language (2021)
- Eli Baxter, Aki-wayn-zih: A Person as Worthy as the Earth (2022)
- Kyo Maclear, Unearthing (2023)