A Hole in the Universe [With Headphones] Book

At the age of eighteen, a young man is convicted for the murder of a woman during a robbery and sent to a high security prison. Twenty-five years later, he is finally set free, a changed man painfully entering a changed world. He emerges into a society that has grown unfamiliar and corrupt, his many years inside prison leaving him unprepared for the world beyond the gates. Unsure of the new rules of society, he is subject to the hidden motivations of those around him, the plans that his friends and family may or may not have for him. This is a darkly compelling story of how one man struggles to mend the gap that his crime and incarceration have torn in his life, coming to grips with the hole gouged in his personal universe.

The New York Times

What keeps this borderline potboiler simmering is the sense that the characters really are evolving, whether they're turning into selfish boors (Dennis) or making the transition from doormat to saint, as in the case of the ever-surprising Delores. — John Hartl