New York & London: Macmillan, (1983) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - The fifth (and last) novel by this former ex-con and author of "Howard Street"- a classic novel of life on the streets of Newark, New Jersey. This novel is a story of moral and ethical choice set in one of America's most dehumanizing institutions, the prison. A "graphic exposŽ of prison life, it is important because it offers a wider canvas than most prison fiction. In this novel, Heard shows the raw, violent life in the American penal system, especially for the nonwhites who constitute the majority of America's prison population. H. Bruce Franklin, in his book 'Prison Literature in America' (1989), tells us that 'House of SlammersÓ' is the most important novel yet published about the American prison.Ó (Oxford Reference) INSCRIBED on the front endpaper. Laid in is a photograph of Heard signing. 246 pp. ISBN: 0-02-5497605.