We tend to think of writers as shy, retiring types, who don’t get into any trouble and definitely don’t get arrested for disorderly conduct or treason. But of course, the literary world has had its fair share of wild and dangerous persons, some of whom are as notorious as criminals (whether rightly or falsely accused) as they are as writers. After the jump, check out 13 mugshots from famous authors’ adventures in police custody — not for use on the backs of book covers.
Ezra Pound
Pinched for: treason, 1945
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James Ellroy
Pinched for: being drunk, disorderly, et al, 1971
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Isaac Babel
Pinched for: “active participation in an anti-Soviet Trotskyite organization” and “being a member of a terrorist conspiracy,” 1939
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Dalton Trumbo
Pinched for: refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, 1947
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Jean Genet
Pinched for: oh so many things.
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Nelson Algren
Pinched for: possession of marijuana, 1967
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James Frey (with chicken pox!)
Pinched for: drunk driving and driving without a license, 1988
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Malcolm X
Pinched for: burglary, 1947
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Neal Cassady
Pinched for: receipt of stolen property, 1944
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Jack Henry Abbott
Pinched for: robbery, and then — post-bestselling novel, prison sentence, and Norman Mailer-induced fame — murder. This photo taken in 2000.
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Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
Pinched for: “anti-Soviet propaganda” in a private letter to a friend. Photo taken upon his release from the Gulag, 1953
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Emile Zola
Pinched for: criminal libel (re: the Dreyfus affair), 1898
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Jack Kerouac
Pinched for: All right, so this is his Naval Reserve Enlistment mugshot. But still, 1943
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