In the Belly of the Beast

Infobox Book
name = In the Belly of the Beast
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Cover of the paperback edition
author = Jack Henry Abbott
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series =
subject = Prison life
genre =
publisher =
release_date = 1981
english_release_date =
media_type =
pages =
isbn = ISBN 978-0679732372
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by = My Return

In the Belly of the Beast is a book written by Jack Abbott and published in 1981.

Jack Abbott was an American career criminal and the book consists of his letters to Norman Mailer about his experiences in what Abbott saw as a brutal and unjust prison system. Mailer supported Abbott's successful bid for parole in 1981, the year that "In the Belly of the Beast" was published.

The book was very successful and on July 19, 1981, the "New York Times" published a rave review of it. However, the day before, Abbott had committed murder during a row with a waiter at a restaurant called Binibon on 2nd Avenue in the East Village. Abbott was eventually arrested and returned to prison for the rest of his life until his suicide in 2002.

In 2004, a New York theatre company ran a play based on the book, named "In the Belly of the Beast Revisited" [http://www.curtainup.com/inthebellyofthebeast.html]

Despite the similarity of their titles, the 2003 action movie "Belly of the Beast" is unrelated to Abbott's book.

Pop Culture Reference: Meg Tilly's character is seen reading "In the Belly of the Beast," while spending her first night in the Bates house, in a scene from Psycho II, the first of three sequels to Alfred Hitchcock's famous thriller.