I got this book for Christmas, and it sat on my pile of “To Read” books because there were a dozen or so books waiting for me before I could get to this one.
But I picked it up, and started reading.
This is an extraordinary book, not only for the masterful construction of a story (I’m always looking for that) but also for the deeply personal and intimate way of telling us this story that brings us into the lives of these men and women and children who have been pushed onto a conveyor belt that leads to the extraordinary cruelty of the death penalty in the United States.
I’ll admit that there were a few emotional points for me when I had to put the book down. I’m a softie. Reading stories of abuse meted out upon children AND adults gets me angered, sure, but I’m also thinking of people by other people breaks me. I’m dismayed, to put it lightly, on how richly our prison systems are thoroughly soaked with cruelty to the humans who are incarcerated.
I did see the movie earlier, and am glad that the book contains the story that is featured in the book, but this is a much more detailed telling of the stories of many Americans who’ve been captured and treated with the same indifference to human dignity as a fly captured by a cruel man who delights in torture.
We’ve got to change the way we do justice. We have to do just mercy.