On the Run by Andy Hjelmeland

Non Fiction
44 pages
8.5" x 5.5" single signature with hand sewn binding
Published April 2018

“Being on the wire is life. The rest is all waiting.”

In the spring of 1956, Andy Hjelmeland was just 20 years old, a self-described petty criminal working his way “up” through the justice system from kid joints to maximum security prisons. After serving 14 months of an indeterminate sentence in St. Cloud Reformatory, he was moved into the deep woods of northern Minnesota where he was to serve the rest of his sentence in Willow River Correctional Facility.

But he had other ideas.

In this memoir excerpt, Hjelmeland makes a split second decision that puts him out on the wire--sprinting through forests, drifting through Greyhound bus depots, and looking for work against the backdrop of Denver's skid row. And, in the voice of a true storyteller, he takes the reader on the run right along with him.