When I heard Taylor Sheridan had a book coming out, I couldn’t believe this era’s most prolific producer, director, and writer—Yellowstone, Landman, Lioness, Sicario, to name a few—had time to write a book. When I saw the book was a guide, How to Not Die in Prison, I wondered, What does Taylor Sheridan know about prison?
When an advance copy of the title landed on my cell bars in Sing Sing, I was shocked it didn’t get denied because of the censorship rules. On the back cover is an illustration of a sharpened toothbrush and in its pages a tutorial on how to make it: “A sharpened toothbrush can make a decent knife on its own, or you can heat up the brush and insert an old razor blade into the handle,” writes Sheridan’s coauthor, an ex-con named Tom Nelson. (I wouldn’t bring one of those to a knife fight in Sing Sing—the boys in here have real knives.)
This book, I quickly realized, is not Taylor Sheridan breaking into the literary world—it’s really him looking out for Tom Nelson, who did 17 years on an installment plan, mostly in California joints. Nelson got out and became a personal trainer. In the introduction, Sheridan explains how he used to work out at Muscle Mechanics, a gym Nelson owned in Los Angeles. The two became cool. During Covid, Nelson lost his business. Sheridan bought the gym’s weights and machines for the Yellowstone crew in Wyoming. Nelson still struggled. Instead of giving him a loan, Sheridan offered Nelson an opportunity. Having read a script Nelson wrote about his own life (ah, yes, the ex-con autobiographical screenplay), he knew the “dude could write.” It hit Sheridan: “What the world needs is a travel guide to the penitentiary.”
I mean, the world probably doesn’t need a prison survival guide, but it doesn’t matter. Sheridan can do whatever he wants. He’s really “that dude” in Hollywood, and by all accounts he hates Hollywood. Which you gotta love. The boys at Sing Sing, who’ve never seen a ranch and mostly come from New York City, like Sheridan’s cowboy shows. They watch Yellowstone reruns on the Paramount channel (we have televisions in our cells, and Paramount comes with our cable package), and they sometimes binge his other shows, like Tulsa King and Mayor of Kingstown (a show about prison), on the Paramount+ app on contraband cell phones in their cells.
In Stephen Rodrick’s 2018 profile for Esquire, we learn about how Sheridan started from the bottom. As a B-list actor in Sons of Anarchy and Texas Ranger, Sheridan was barely getting by in L.A. until his wife bought him the screenwriting program Final Draft. An autodidact with a knack for narrative, he blew up. So trust: Taylor Sheridan putting his name on this book is a favor. But Nelson mostly delivers. The book does cover most of the bullshit you’ll encounter as a convict.
Sheridan offers a brief setup for every section in How to Not Die in Prison—“Welcome to Prison,” “How to Win Friends and Influence Prisoners,” “The Prison Economy,” “Keeping Your Sanity”—and then hands it off to Nelson. At the outset, Nelson drops his bona fides: a rap sheet, his cred to write the guide. He’s robbed and assaulted and sold drugs. He’s served a handful of stints, six and a half years being the longest and the last. The ideal reader of this book, Sheridan and Nelson suggest, is someone about to turn themselves in: “You’re going to be glad you spent some time prepping for what will likely be the worst experience of your life.”
Thing is, most people heading to prison are already locked up in county jail, not bailed out with time to put their affairs in order and read this book.
by John J. Lennon
