James, a still-water-runs-deep boy, struggles to navigate the rough streets of Oakland, California, in the 80s. His only friend is a pit bull he rescues from dog fighting. On the cusp of college, James commits a crime that results in a prison term of thirty to life. Allison, a young Indiana girl obsessed with Nancy Drew novels, vows that her life's mission will be to solve mysteries and help people. Introverted yet daring, Allison moves to Berkeley to teach prep school and volunteers as a tutor at San Quentin. She meets James when he is approaching fifty, learns his story, and after his parole denial, channels Nancy Drew to plan his improbable escape. San Quentin Exodus is a braided novel about two people whose lives cross in a quest to reset an ill-fated life. It is a story infused with misfortune and pain, but also with hope and a fierce humanity. San Quentin Exodus , Bill Smoot's deeply compelling novel, introduces readers to the world of prison but really to the much bigger world of his characters' lives, inviting us to follow the trajectory of each as it unfolds with surprise and mystery, love and loss. Like all good literature, San Quentin Exodus ultimately asks us to reconsider everything we believe—or think we believe. Smoot is the consummate storyteller: restrained, wise, compassionate. —Lori Ostlund, author of Are You Happy? In San Quentin Exodus , Bill Smoot takes us deeply into the world of incarceration and rehabilitation, with its pitfalls and fragile possibility. Smoot has delivered two unforgettable characters whose encounter alters the trajectory of each of their lives. The social and economic circumstances that lead to the young James's incarceration, and the disturbing story of his long tenure behind bars, suggest the abject limitations of our current penal system, while the well-intentioned Allison, who tutors James in the prison's college program, draws upon the perspective of her own marginalization to risk everything in the story's dramatic final act. —Angela Pneuman, author of Lay it on my Heart Bill Smoot's San Quentin Exodus is a thoughtful, deeply humane novel that blends social realism with quiet suspense. Written with restraint and intelligence, the book explores incarceration, identity, and moral courage without resorting to melodrama or easy answers...One of the book's strengths is its moral complexity. Smoot does not frame the story as a simple critique of the justice system, nor does he romanticize escape. James understands the risk clearly: "The greater danger is not that he'll get caught... but that the hope he's allowed himself to feel will die." Hope, not freedom alone, becomes the central currency of the novel. The prose is often spare, but moments like this land with real force. --Kyle Eaton, San Francisco Review A belief in a "truer kind of justice" powers Smoot's ambitious, engaging novel, which blends coming-of-age story, adult redemption arc, thoughtful social drama, and an exciting attempted prison break. In a tantalizing prologue, Smoot (author of Conversations with Great Teachers ) introduces Allison Anderson, one of his two protagonists, six years after she started volunteering as a prison tutor at San Quentin prison. From her first moments inside the medium-security penitentiary, her problem-solving mind speculates on how a prisoner might escape. In the book's present, she is about to put a real plan in motion to spring James, incarcerated for 30 years. With readers hooked, the narrative flashes back to the 1980s, James's rough-and-tumble California childhood, and two pressing mysteries: how did he wind up in prison, and will Allison's plan succeed? --Publishers Weekly Bill Smoot is a writer living in Berkeley, California. A lifelong teacher, for the past fourteen years he has taught college courses at Mount Tamalpais College in San Quentin Prison.