Kip, a bank robber, is released from jail with help from a priest and senator. He gets a job at a hotel to start over but struggles with media attention and not making progress with parole. He meets a woman, Julie, who becomes his love interest. Throughout the novel, Kip fights internal struggles as he tries to rebuild his life and deal with issues of identity, responsibility, and feelings of isolation.

1. By Erika Schoonderwoerd
IP Multimedia
Presentation

2. PLOT SUMMARY
This is a tale of a struggle within oneself, based
on the true story of Norman “Red” Ryan in the
early 1930s.
Kip, a bank robber, gets released from jail with
the help of Father Butler and the support of
Senator McLean. He gets a job at a hotel and
tries to get his life going in the right direction
again.
Throughout the novel, Kip has many struggles
with always being covered by the media, and
not be able to get on the parole board as he hoped,
but he also meets Julie, who becomes a love
interest.
y 1930s.

3. T
H
E
S
I
S
Low self-esteem, caused by many
different aspects of one's life that affect their
psychological being, will ultimately result in
violence, when the negativity that they feel
becomes too much for them to handle.

4. One's self-esteem can be built upon
knowing that there will always be people,
or a person, supporting you through it all.
Therefore, when these
people start giving up,
it is common for one's
self-esteem to slowly
disappear as well.

5. “He felt her breathless
eagerness to share his
life. It awed him” (97)

6. “There seemed to be a
little tug at his heart,
a sudden distortion of
his vision. Everything
he had thought good
had became ugly and
ridiculous.” (145-146)

7. One often finds self-esteem in popularity, but when the
media starts to exploit a person, defining their social
identity, that person's self-esteem tends to be compromised
when they are unable to have a noticeable impact on their
social identity, and in some cases, their self identity as well.

8. “If only the don't make
everybody of me. Please dear
, give me a chance, and all I ask
is that get a chance to know
how i feel and that they don't keep
away from me.” (23)

9. “'It was the job, a restaurant job, see? I
wanted to get some place where nobody'd
notice me. God knows how the thing would
work out.'” (34)

10. When someone feels completely alone,
they resort to the time in their life that
they believe was the easiest to live,
generally where they held the least
amount of responsibility, whether this be
a turn for the better or the worse.

11. “The humiliation he had been
seeking in a final destruction
of his dignity had come.” (148)

12. “It would only be carrying on the work he
had done among the men in prison. He
suddenly longed to believe it was
possible. Then he mocked himself, he
tried to blot the wish out of his heart. It
kept coming back brighter. It enlarged
everything.” (43)

13. Runaway Train- Soul Asylum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRtvqT_wMeY
Call you up in the middle of the
night
Like a firefly without a light
Runaway train, never goin' back
Wrong-way on a one-way track
Seems like I should get getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here or there
C NOISULCNO