Dead Run: The Shocking Story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America - Couverture souple

Jackson, Joe; Burke, William F., Jr.

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0802775993 ISBN 13 : 9780802775993

Editeur : Walker & Co, 2000

Synopsis

Book by Jackson Joe Burke William F Jr

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

Summers are always stifling in southern Virginia, and they're even hotter on the Mecklenburg Correctional Center's Death Row when Dennis Stockton arrives there in July 1983. Charged with murder for hire, Stockton insisted he was innocent, but his jury sentenced him to die. In prison, he begins keeping a diary and it soon becomes his lifeline, nurturing dreams of freedom and publication as an author.

Mecklenburg's officials had always prided themselves on running a secure prison, but that left them vulnerable to an ingenious escape conspiracy. Though indispensable in the plotting, Stockton decides not to run, betting instead on a new trial and exoneration. The escape of the "Mecklenburg Six" is dazzlingly suspenseful, as they take hostages, don guards' uniforms, and, staging a monumental bluff, make history with America's first mass escape from Death Row. Mean-while, Stockton notes it all in his journal.

After the escape, a Norfolk newspaper editor, William F. Burke, Jr., writes to the remaining inmates, seeking information on the unprecedented breakout. Stockton's diary becomes the most revealing account, and when excerpts are published, a scandalous portrait of Death Row emerges: bribed guards, marijuana plants, homebrew alcohol, weapon stashes, unlocked cell doors, and jailhouse sex. Overnight, Stockton becomes the most hated man in Virginia's prisons for his exposé. During the next eleven years, he survives plots against his life and endures subhuman conditions.

Throughout his ordeal he struggles to find his voice as a writer, while battling to gain a new trial and escape the "monster factory," his name for Death Row. As Stockton's scheduled execution nears, the case against him begins unraveling, leaving readers to ponder the true nature of justice.

Revue de presse

Early Readers Praise A Riveting Jailhouse Drama

"Dead Run is a gripping true narrative, remarkable for the manner in which it treats crime and punishment, and the issue of justice in this country, on a level that should trouble one's deepest conscience. . . . What gives the tale much of its extraordinary fascination is its rendition of life on Death Row as seen through Stockton's eyes. . . . Colorful, ironic and cheerfully mordant . . . [he] came to the writer's calling fairly late in life, and this straightforward and often pungently stoical record of his slow inching toward death was all he had to give us, before the state exacted its retribution. . . . It is a gift we should treasure, bearing witness as it does to Stockton's own appealing humanity, and the inhumanity of the law that destroyed him."--from William Styron's Introduction

"Whew! This is great stuff, ingeniously told, hard to put down. The first page hustles you through the prison gates and you don't get out until the last line. This is the sort of inside stuff that outsiders who have studied prisons for years just don't get, written as it is not by an outsider looking in, but through the eyes of an arguably innocent man whose brutally
honest account of what it feels like to be a dead man walking is both captivating and horrific. The two authors--reporters who covered Stockton's story--have done a brilliant job letting him carry the book. In a sensitive and unfettered voice, Stockton's story is told with such searing honesty that a reader wants to jump to his feet and yell, 'Stop this insanity!'
as he is being led to the execution chamber."--Pete Earley, author of The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Walker & Co
• Date d'édition: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0802775993
• ISBN 13: 9780802775993
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 299
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible