William “Billy” Hayes

Two are fictional, Stephen King's The Shining from 1977, which was his first real masterpiece, his third published book, and William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist from 1971.

And the third is Billy Hayes' Midnight Express, a nonfiction book from 1977.

Right.

Now, let's skip the basic summaries.

So we have the collapse of the family and the collapse of rational science.

But here's where it gets really interesting, and I am gonna push back hard on Jeremy Urquhart's list.

He places Midnight Express, which is the entirely nonfiction, intensely personal real-life experience of Billy Hayes serving time in a Turkish prison for drug smuggling.

Which is much better and more balanced than the controversial movie adaptation, by the way.

Now, staying within the realm of the deeply personal memoir, we have a completely different kind of survival story at number six, Midnight Express, published in 1977.

Co-written by Billy Hayes and William Hoffer.

Right.

This isn't about an unsolved murder.

This is about state-sanctioned hell.

It covers Billy Hayes' experience after he was arrested in Turkey in 1970 for attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country.

country.The premise alone is a nightmare of international legal limbo.

Totally.

made us cappuccino and told us it would be no problem if he could prove my wife was 1% to blame.

There's actually a scene in that movie about the kid, Hayes, Billy Hayes, with the smuggling, the hashish out of Turkey, you know, where he comes

out with the coffee, the

little Turkish cups there, you know?