In telling the story of the forgotten men in America's prisons, Jerome Washington reveals the root of our national delusion: a shortsighted view of security that has led to violence and desperation on the streets and in the prisons. Men behind bars pass the time by engaging in hopeless fantasies, humiliating power plays, and sheer cruelty. Washington shows us that the line between their lives and ours is nonexistent. With humor by turns gentle and biting, he portrays the confusion and indifference that have brought us to regard the imprisoned as the disposable trash of a throwaway society.

While incarcerated in the New York State prison system, Jerome Washington received a fellowship from The New York Foundation for the Arts for his play The Boys in Cellblock "C." Jerome was a member of PEN American Center's Prison Writing Committee and Poets and Writers, and served on the boards of directors of the Coalition for the Creative Arts and the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors (Western Region). Iron House was his fourth book.