Breaching the Walls

Joe Corvi, a resident of south Philadelphia and formerly an “invited guest” of the eastern Pennsylvania prison system, started working on this book nearly 30 years ago but never finished it. The work in progress was neatly stored in nine manila envelopes and tucked away in a dark corner of a closet shelf. There the unfinished manuscript gathered dust and nagged at him until two years ago when he shared his story with his granddaughter, Amanda. She couldn’t for a second understand the unfinished book and took matters into her own hands. A search of the internet led her to Steve Conway, a Media, Pennsylvania author who specializes in biographies and memoirs, and she quickly arranged for her grandfather and Conway to meet. Breaching the Walls is the result of that meeting.

Corvi provides an insider’s view of certain events that took place in the eastern Pennsylvania penal system during the 1940s and 1950s. He shares a familiarity with the prisons, the inmates, the administration, and those events that can only be gained through personal knowledge, firsthand experience, and a close acquaintance with men who are the actors in his drama. In short, he can tell the story convincingly because he was there, an inmate himself.

Although the cast of characters is large, Breaching is really the story of three men who served years together in three eastern Pennsylvania prisons–Eastern State Penitentiary, Graterford, and Holmesburg. One of the men, Corvi himself, made the best of a bad situation. He accepted responsibility for his own actions, served his time productively and was finally released late in 1954. The other two men, James Van Sant and Frederick Tenuto, in stark contrast to Corvi’s experience, made the worst of the situation. Their unrelenting attention focused on a single, superordinate objective–freedom. Any means would do and consequences weren’t even considered. By the time the two men finally gained their freedom, in quite different ways, each had served at least 20 years in prison and each still owed the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania 45 years. In the end, one escaped from the law and the other used the law to escape.

At almost every turn of a page a prison break is being conceived, planned, or executed. Men escape and are captured. Holdups, armed robberies, and shootings punctuate the chapters. In the interludes between the action scenes, the inmates experience everything from terrifying confrontations to simple fraternal kindnesses. Finally, there are the long hours spent contemplating the mind-numbing prospect of being incarcerated for interminable decades — an endless purgatory.