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Interviews | November 19, 2009

Dave: IMG Finding John Irving: The Powells.com Interview

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johnirving[Editor's note: The following is a reprint of our 2005 interview with John Irving, whose new novel, Last Night in Twisted River, has just come out... Continue »
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Almost Home: My Life Story

by Damien Echols

Almost Home: My Life Story Cover

ISBN13: 9780595357017
ISBN10: 0595357016
Condition: Standard
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Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

Almost Home is a message to you from a faraway place. It is a message from a 12-foot by 9-foot cell in a cinderblock building surrounded by coils of razor wire in the middle of a dirt field in Arkansas. It was written by a young man named Damien Echols and it chronicles his life and his experiences in a way that clearly illuminates him, not as a monster, but as a human being. For over 10 years Damien has been an inmate on death row for a crime he did not commit. He, along with Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley have become known as The West Memphis Three, and though the story of their arrest and conviction is widely known, most people don't know the real people behind the sound bites and the TV news segment clips. Damien has spent much of his time behind bars diligently maintaining his integrity and his sanity by writing. Almost Home is the product of that self-discipline, and in it you will meet someone who has survived an ordeal many of us would find impossible to live through. There are a few who still believe that Damien is a devil-worshipping child killer, but as time passes and more facts rise to the surface, it becomes even more clear that he is the victim of a peculiar species of hysteria. Read this book and know the truth about him. It is an urgent message from death row; the whole story of who Damien Echols really is.
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Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
untermensch, December 31, 2007 (view all comments by untermensch)
Almost Worth Reading

I really don't know if Damien was the mastermind of THE heinous crime or not, but one thing is clear from reading Echols' book is that he is a narcissist. His acknowledgement that being convicted may well be the best thing that happened to him is a clear revelation of that fact. Having movies made and books written about him, personal relationships with celebrities, a groupie wife, all of these things would never have come his way if he had not been convicted. From reading his memoirs it is clear that had his life continued without a murder trial, he would be living sad and unhappy life in an Arkansas trailer park with a woman he didn't love and a child he didn't want on a monthly mental disability check.

I would like to believe that Echols' is simply a rebellious suburban Goth victimized by a Southern redneck justice system, it would expose the truly sad state of our justice system. Unfortunately Almost Home does not make a convincing case for it, leaving out so many important questions that it leaves you wondering if his new California attorneys edited out the relevent parts. If you are a WM3 "true believer", you'll love this book, but if you are an objective observer, you will be dissapointed.
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Lizardofoz, May 6, 2006 (view all comments by Lizardofoz)
Amazing. An honest and innocent account of one man's life. Everyone should read this book and be effected by the amazing story. There are many of us, and we know who we are, that owe something to Damien for we are the same and he pays for us all. This book is the story of an unlikely Martyr from a small southern town. Damien tells his story from learning about friends and god on his quest for religion and his awakening to a nightmere reality that is his American Criminal Justice System. A must read for professionals and humans alike.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780595357017
Subtitle:
My Life Story
Author:
Echols, Damien
Publisher:
iUniverse
Subject:
Personal Memoirs
Subject:
Murder - General
Subject:
Criminals & Outlaws
Copyright:
2005
Publication Date:
June 2005
Binding:
Paperback
Language:
English
Pages:
172
Dimensions:
900x602x41 56
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