The Hot House

The Hot House names the brutal conditions inside the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth, where T. B. White served as warden, and gives a chapter about the prison the force of a setting and a metaphor. The nickname arose from extreme summer heat in a penitentiary built for 1,200 people but holding three times that number. It also suits a place where the past seemed to crowd in behind the bars: White encountered former adversaries, criminals, and the men who had killed his older brother.