That the shipwrecked hero, a young Indian boy named Piscine Molitor Patel -- "Pi" for short -- didn't have another human soul to talk to for 200 days presented another significant challenge.
Mr. Roberts, who was released in 2007 after serving eight years on a methamphetamine charge at prisons including the La Tuna Federal Correctional Institution in Texas, says he got busted for various piscine transactions.