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Title details for Dead Man Walking by Helen Prejean - Available

Dead Man Walking

The Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate

by Helen Prejean
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Audiobook
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In 1982, Sister Helen Prejean became the spiritual advisor to Patrick Sonnier, the convicted killer of two teenagers who was sentenced to die in the electric chair of Louisiana’s Angola State Prison. In the months before Sonnier’s death, the Roman Catholic nun came to know a man who was as terrified as he had once been terrifying. She also came to know the families of the victims and the men whose job it was to execute—men who often harbored doubts about the rightness of what they were doing.
        Out of that dreadful intimacy comes a profoundly moving spiritual journey through our system of capital punishment. Here Sister Helen confronts both the plight of the condemned and the rage of the bereaved, the fears of a society shattered by violence and the Christian imperative of love. On its original publication in 1993, Dead Man Walking emerged as an unprecedented look at the human consequences of the death penalty. Now, some two decades later, this story—which has inspired a film, a stage play, an opera and a musical album—is more gut-wrenching than ever, stirring deep and life-changing reflection in all who encounter it.
Read by the author, Helen Prejean
Preface written by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and read by Dominic Hoffman 
Afterwords written and read by Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    May 21, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593107553
      • File size: 398708 KB
      • Duration: 13:50:38

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 30, 1994
      A Catholic nun's compelling polemic against capital punishment.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 31, 1993
      It would be difficult to find a more powerful and moving attack on capital punishment than this plea for its abolition by a nun, member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Medaille. Prejean was working with the poor in a New Orleans housing project in 1982 when she began corresponding with Patrick Sonnier, a convict on death row in the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Before long, she had become his spiritual adviser and, while not condoning the crime of which he was convicted, spearheaded the unsuccessful attempt to have his sentence commuted. After Sonnier's execution, Prejean counseled Robert Willie, another condemned man, until he too went to the electric chair. Her well-publicized efforts on these men's behalf drew resentment from the victims' relatives, but she was sensitive to their continuing pain as well; she played a major role in setting up a victim assistance program in New Orleans. Yet Prejean remains an absolutist on the death penalty: ``Killing by anyone, under any conditions, cannot be tolerated.''

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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