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The Autobiography of an Execution
Contributors
By David R. Dow
Read by Joshua Ferris
Formats and Prices
Format
Format:
- Audiobook Download (Unabridged)
- ebook $9.99 $12.99 CAD
- Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD
This item is a preorder. Your payment method will be charged immediately, and the product is expected to ship on or around February 3, 2010. This date is subject to change due to shipping delays beyond our control.
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A riveting, artfully written memoir of a lawyer’s life as he races to prevent death row inmates from being executed.
It this spellbinding true crime narrative, Dow takes us inside of prisons, inside the complicated minds of judges, inside execution-administration chambers, into the lives of death row inmates (some shown to be innocent, others not) and even into his own home–where the toll of working on these gnarled and difficult cases is perhaps inevitably paid. He sheds insight onto unexpected phenomena– how even religious lawyer and justices can evince deep rooted support for putting criminals to death– and makes palpable the suspense that clings to every word and action when human lives hang in the balance.
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"I have read much about capital punishment, but David Dow's book leaves all else behind."Anthony Lewis
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"In an argument against capital punishment, Dow's capable memoir partially gathers its steam from the emotional toll on all parties involved, especially the overworked legal aid lawyers and their desperate clients. The author, the litigation director of the Texas Defender Service and a professor at the University of Houston Law Center, respects the notion of attorney-client privilege in this handful of real-life legal outcomes, some of them quite tragic, while acknowledging executions are 'not about the attorneys,' but 'about the victims of murder and sometimes their killers.' While trying to maintain a proper balance in his marriage to Katya, a fellow attorney and ballroom dancer, he spells out the maze of legal mumbo-jumbo to get his clients stays or released from confinement in the cases of a hapless Vietnam vet who shot a child, another man who beat his pregnant wife to death and another who killed his wife and children. In the end, Dow's book is a sobering, gripping and candid look into the death penalty."Publishers Weekly
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"For a lot of good reasons, and some that are not so good, executions in the U.S. are carried out in private. The voters, the vast majority of whom support executions, are not allowed to see them. The Autobiography of an Execution is a riveting and compelling account of a Texas execution written and narrated by a lawyer in the thick of the last minute chaos. It should be read by all those who support state sponsored killing."John Grisham, author of The Innocent Man
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"Defending the innocent is easy. David Dow fights for the questionable. He is tormented, but relentless, and takes us inside his struggle with candor and insight, shudders and all."Dave Cullen, author of Columbine
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"David Dow's extraordinary memoir lifts the veil on the real world of representing defendants on death row. It will stay with me a long time."Jeffrey Toobin, author of The Nine
- On Sale
- Feb 3, 2010
- Publisher
- Hachette Audio
- ISBN-13
- 9781607881360
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