<div>When seventeen-year-old T. J. Parsell held up the local Photo Mat with a toy gun, he had no idea how severe the consequences of his joke would be. Sentenced to a prison term of four and a half to fifteen years, Parsell was initiated immediately into the torturous system of sexual violence among inmates. On the first day in general population, four older inmates drugged Parsell and took turns raping him. When they were through, they flipped a coin to decide who would &#8220;own&#8221; him. Forced to remain silent about his rape by a convict code among inmates (one in which informers are murdered), Parsell&#8217;s experience that first night haunted him throughout the rest of his sentence, even when he was transferred to a medium security prison months later.<br><br>For the first time Parsell, one of America&#8217;s leading spokespeople for prison reform, shares the story of his harrowing coming of age behind bars.&nbsp;However, <i>Fish</i> is more than a memoir about prison masculinity, power, and rape. Parsell offers an unvarnished view of life in prison through the eyes of a teenager who must come to terms with all the ordinary teenage issues like identity, sexuality, and self-acceptance.</div>