Through interviews with men and women convicted of killing by near-accident, during acts of passion, or in contract hits, Parker reveals their stories, their motives, their thoughts: none claims innocence; some show remorse. Parker collects their conversations and, by subtle arrangement, achieves an extraordinary narrative tension. Among those who talked with him were a man who spent three years on Death Row awaiting execution and another who was strapped in the electric chair before being reprieved; a pastor of a ...
Read More
Through interviews with men and women convicted of killing by near-accident, during acts of passion, or in contract hits, Parker reveals their stories, their motives, their thoughts: none claims innocence; some show remorse. Parker collects their conversations and, by subtle arrangement, achieves an extraordinary narrative tension. Among those who talked with him were a man who spent three years on Death Row awaiting execution and another who was strapped in the electric chair before being reprieved; a pastor of a revivalist church in the Deep South who became a born-again fundamentalist in prison; a former prostitute who murdered her pimp and set fire to his body; a lawyer and former addict who shot her live-in drug dealer boyfriend; a personnel manager now out of prison on parole after serving seventeen years for a street-brawl stabbing; and many others - men and women, black and white, some of whom are regarded as so dangerous and violent that they are incarcerated in maximum-security prisons with no chance of ever being released. Finally, there are interviews with relatives of people who were murdered - scarred forever, like the offenders, by the violence of our lives. From each interview there emerges a story so individual, vivid, and skillfully rendered that it challenges any assumptions about the causes of crime and the justification of punishment.
Read Less
Add this copy of Violence of Our Lives: Interviews With American to cart. $3.61, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Reno rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Reno, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Henry Holt & Company.
Add this copy of Violence of Our Lives: Interviews With American to cart. $3.61, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Henry Holt & Company.
Add this copy of The Violence of Our Lives: Interviews With American to cart. $74.84, new condition, Sold by GridFreed rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from North Las Vegas, NV, UNITED STATES, published 1996 by Owl Books.