LIFE AFTER DEATH
Damien Echols
Penguin Group (Blue Rider)
September 18, 2012
I can't say that "prison writing" has ever been my reading choice, but having seen the HBO documentary, Paradise Lost, about the events and hysteria surrounding the arrests and convictions of three teenagers in the murders of 3 eight-year-old boys I had more than a passing interest in the case. I was able to pick up a readers copy of LIFE AFTER DEATH at BEA this year, even though I missed the actual signing.
On the face of it, the arrests and trials seemed to me one more in a long line of American mob hysterias about satanism and witchcraft. The hysteria was whipped up by the media with sensational and often completely non-factual reporting. Add an incompetent police investigation and you have the classic lynching scenario. Damien Echols was tailor-made to fit the bill as scapegoat. The only "goth" kid in town from an impoverished and thus powerless background the police thought he was an ideal candidate for a quick resolution to a brutal crime. Josh Baldwin made the mistake of being Damien's friend, and Jessie Misskelly was only an acquaintance. Jessie however had a very low IQ and would be easy to coerce into a confession. All three were convicted, but Damien was sentenced to death. Questions were being asked during and as soon as the trial ended about the lack of evidence and the dismal quality of the investigation. Two HBO documentary makers went down to cover the trial and what they expected to be a lurid tale of cult murder and satanism turned into an expose of police and judicial misconduct. Many famous people such as Johnny Depp, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson, and Henry Rollins; along with many private citizens became supporters. One of those citizens, Lorri Davis, a landscape architect from New York City, became his most staunch and tireless advocate. Lorri moved to Little Rock and the two were married while he was still in prison. The State of Arkansas fought them every inch of the way but the three were finally freed in 2011. Freed, but not exonerated, as they could only negotiate freedom under an "Afton Plea", a concept I cannot get my head around. An "Afton Plea is a guilty plea in which they stipulated that they are not guilty.
No one, not even Damien represents himself as a sterling character. I find his recounting of his early life almost painfully honest. The product of a broken home, dire poverty, a rage-filled fundamentalist step-father and an ineffectual mother (the kindest description I can give of her), Damien got into some minor trouble, failed a couple of grades and was in a state of drift. He had a couple of court mandated stays in mental institutions. Those stays were used to great effect in the trial but I have to question whether wearing black clothing and liking Metallica constitutes mental illness. His abortive attempt to run away with a girlfriend while still in high school got him on the local police radar, and they never let him out of their sights. However, Damien loved to read and was always a spiritual seeker. Those two qualities saved his sanity while in prison along with a determination to survive and see freedom again. He used meditation, Zen practices and journaling to save his sanity and exercise to save what he could of his health.
LIFE AFTER DEATH is a beautifully written and riveting indictment of the judicial system and the penal system. Today's "supermax" facilities are the modern day equivalent of the medieval oubliette, finely calculated to drive men insane. Twenty-three hours of solitary confinement a day and decades without seeing the sun would drive anyone insane. To survive the brutality he was subjected to and come out with a finely honed writing style and intact soul is a true testament to the strength of the human spirit. Damien does not want to be known as just the guy who got off death row but it was that experience shaped him. I look forward to more from Damien Echols.
Rating- 5 Stars
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