Life After Death

Starred review from June 25, 2012
Wrongly convicted at 18 along with two other teenagers and sentenced to death for the 1993 murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Ark., Echols spent nearly two decades in prison before being released in August 2011. In this searing, finely wrought memoir, Echols recalls his poverty-stricken childhood, the trial of the West Memphis 3, and the harsh realities of life on death row. Sent there in 1994, Echols journaled consistently, though many notebooks were destroyed by guards. Echols describes death row as the equivalent of solitary confinement, his only human contact the infrequently allowed visitors from the outside world. Even sunlight and fresh air were denied at Varner Super Max, the facility he was transferred to in 2003. Echols recalls his less than ideal home life, with a mother who cultivated drama and a stepfather he despised (the feeling seems to have been mutual). The most affecting sections are Echols’s philosophical musings on all he has lost, his thoughts often influenced by Zen Buddhism. In one journal entry that survived the guards’ purge, Echols contemplates what he misses the most while in prison. The answer is a heart-wrenching and simple commentary on American prison life: “In the end it’s not the fruit I miss most... I miss being treated like a human being.”

Starred review from July 15, 2012
Exceptional memoir by the most famous of the West Memphis Three. In 1993, Echols (Almost Home, 2005) was convicted, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., in the case of the sadistic sex murders and mutilations of three young boys in the woods around their hometown of West Memphis, Ark. The state's case was based almost entirely on the confession wrung out of Misskelley, who, writes the author, had the "intellect of a child," and who recanted soon afterward. Witnesses' testimonies to Echols' "demonic" character sealed the defendants' fates. Baldwin and Misskelley each received life sentences; Echols, perceived to be the ringleader of an alleged "satanic cult," was sentenced to death. Over the next decade, an HBO trilogy of documentaries on the case, collectively titled Paradise Lost, helped spark an international campaign to free the West Memphis Three. Johnny Depp, Eddie Vedder, Henry Rollins and Peter Jackson were among the celebrities who became personally involved in the case; thanks to their efforts, and especially those of Echols' wife, Lorri, whom he met during his prison term, the three were released in August 2011. Those bare facts alone would make for an interesting story. However, Echols is at heart a poet and mystic, and he has written not just a quickie one-off book to capitalize on a lurid news story, but rather a work of art that occasionally bears a resemblance to the work of Jean Genet. A voracious reader all his life, Echols vividly tells his story, from his impoverished childhood in a series of shacks and mobile homes to his emergence after half a lifetime behind bars as a psychically scarred man rediscovering freedom in New York City. The author also effectively displays his intelligence and sensitivity, qualities the Arkansas criminal justice system had no interest in recognizing during Echols' ordeal. Essential reading for anyone interested in justice or memoir.

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Starred review from August 1, 2012

Echols is one of the West Memphis Three (WM3), convicted in 1994 of the murders of three boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. Echols was sentenced to death as the purported leader of what the prosecution asserted had been a deadly satanic ritual. After spending 18 years in prison, with Echols on Death Row, the WM3 were released in 2011 after years of appeals and the presentation of new forensic evidence. Here, Echols traces his life from his impoverished and difficult childhood to his false conviction and his years in prison. The chapters on his earlier life alternate with his impressions of and commentary upon his life on Death Row. Echols's rescue took the form of a devoted woman, Lorri Davis, whom he married while imprisoned, the support of celebrities like Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder, and an HBO documentary, Paradise Lost, that publicized and examined the West Memphis Three's case. VERDICT Though its chronology is sometimes choppy, this is an eloquent, even bitterly lyrical, portrayal of how an innocent man can slip through the cracks of the legal system and struggle to survive. Compelling and deeply moving, in the tradition of Helen Prejean's Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States and Norman Mailer's The Executioner's Song, this memoir will appeal to a wide audience. [Look for LJ's interview with the author, online only.--Ed.]--Antoinette Brinkman, Evansville, IN

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
In 1993, Echols, along with two other teenagers (the West Memphis Three), was convicted of multiple murder. He spent nearly 20 years on death row before new forensic evidence led to the release of all three men. The case garnered worldwide attention, but this memoir is about as far away from a publicity-seeking I-was-wronged story as possible. The author opts for a meatier, and certainly more haunting, account of his life behind bars, coupled with flashbacks to his childhood. Echols was no model citizen, but it would be hard for anyone reading the book to feel he deserved any of the tortures he underwent while in prison. Echols is a talented writer, and when the book dips into his own spiritual and philosophical beliefs (he became a student of Zen while in prison), it achieves the kind of emotional resonance that many similar books lack. The three have already been the subject of one documentary, and anotherco-produced by Peter Jacksonis on the way; but those looking for a more personal account should be steered toward this book. A tragic and often disturbing story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)