Journal
- The book opens with a warning from our narrator not to let anybody hear you crying cry at night. Seriously—if you do, you're gonna be a bloody pulp the next time it's light out. Thanks for the pro tip.
- Our main man checks himself out in the itty-bitty mirror in his jail cell. He doesn't think he looks like himself, which freaks him out because he's only been in jail for a few months.
- We are reading our narrator's journal, a place where he documents the insanity of prison life. Case in point: someone gets mad at breakfast and smashes someone else in the face with a tray. It is super nasty, and blood ends up everywhere. Yuckfest.
- The jail guards come in, and everyone lines up against the wall while they get rubber-gloved. The guards take the bleeding dude away.
- Our main man wonders how anyone can get used to the slammer. For him, this place is the opposite of real—he has to do everything in front of strangers. Everything. It's like the worst reality show ever, one that nobody in their right might would volunteer for.
- For the narrator, being in jail is like living in a movie, an old-timey one that's super hard to follow and all grainy.
- In his mind, the movie is about jail—and not the Shawshank Redemption sort of jail flick, either. The film running through our narrator's mind is all about loneliness and fear. Poor guy.
- To stay sane, the narrator decides to write about his trial like it's a screenplay for film class.
- He'll name it Monster, because that's what the prosecutor calls him already. Ouch.