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Life After Death

4.0 of 5 stars 4.00 · rating details · 2,407 ratings · 460 reviews

In 1993 three teenagers, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Miskelley Jr were arrested and charged with the murders of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas. The ensuing trial was rife with inconsistencies, false testimony and superstition. Echols was accused of, among other things, practising witchcraft and satanic rituals – a result of the “satanic pan...more

Hardcover, 399 pages

Published September 18th 2012 by Blue Rider Press (first published September 17th 2012)

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Oct 12, 2012 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review is on the book, Life After Death, not on the case of the West Memphis 3, my opinions on the case, or how injustice like this can (and does) happen within the legal system of America.

I was very disappointed in this book. There, I said it. Why was I disappointed? Because for the first 60% of the book, with the exception of maybe 10 pages, it was word-for-word his previous memoir, which I purchased and read a few years ago. I pulled out Almost Home and compared the text.

I learned very...more

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Apr 10, 2013 Rivka rated it 4 of 5 stars

So, I should say that I didn't know too much about the West Memphis Three when I came across this book. Months ago, I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Union Square to use the bathroom and found that there was a line of people waiting for a signing that reached from the first to the fourth floor. Who could this possibly be for? I took note of the book and the person- Damien Echols, Life After Death. I'm glad for it.

Having a passion for prison reform and firm convictions about the abolition of...more So, I should say that I didn't know too much about the West Memphis Three when I came across this book. Months ago, I walked into the Barnes and Noble in Union Square to use the bathroom and found that there was a line of people waiting for a signing that reached from the first to the fourth floor. Who could this possibly be for? I took note of the book and the person- Damien Echols, Life After Death. I'm glad for it.

Having a passion for prison reform and firm convictions about the abolition of capital punishment is a good way to maintain a broken heart. I spent most of high school and college bleeding my heart out everywhere. (On the programming board at my university, I hired Gov. George Ryan, my first political hero, to speak on the moratorium on capital punishment that he ordered as governor of Illinois. Unfortunately the week he was supposed to speak he was arrested and thus rendered unable to come to New Jersey.) These are hard issues to get people to care about; they are difficult issues to grapple with personally. Caring about this means having a tolerance for the unlikeable. I mean, given the vitriol for the fictional characters of Girls, how do you sell questionable real-life characters who must have done something to end up where they are?

There are problems with this book- the way it's laid out is confusing and often could benefit from context, dated journal entries are all printed in italics. The writing can be too precocious. That said, it all doesn't really matter. This book is gorgeous for its sum: the spiritual journey of Damien Echols and a firsthand account of life on death row. Echols spent 18 years on death row in Arkansas, just about half of his life at the time of his life at the time of his release. I don't know how anyone survives that spiritually, mentally, or physically. I don't think Echols does either. There was grace here: the HBO's Paradise Lost documentaries that publicized the case, the strong celebrity support that followed (apparently Johnny Depp was part of the reason for the crush at the Union Square signing), and Echols himself. My sense in reading this was that his childhood traumas provided him with some ability to withstand the years of abuse he would have to tolerate and that the mysticism, spiritual and religious practices he begun to develop in his teenage years were his mustard seed.

After college, I gave up on causes because I had the luxury to and because the focus shifted to from theory to experience. A family member became involved in the court system so I saw this up close. I say this only because after Echols described his cell, he talked about all the people he didn't have to describe it to. There is this terrible divide- people who know, are related to people in the system and those who have no knowledge of that world. There is a sphere of compassion that exists inside these and outside of them completely. It is possible to turn pain into understanding and empathy without becoming zealous in idealism. I could witness what happened with my particular family member, but I could do nothing to change it. But, when an opportunity arrived I took it- I started volunteering at Rikers Island through the library.

A jail looks an urban high school and the men inside look like my younger brother, my classmates. National Geographic is extremely popular (any way out of this place). So are conspiracy theory books (there's got to be a reason why). And James Patterson and Lee Child (just because). Not everyone who is in jail is likeable. Most people in jail and prison have earned their spot. Everyone in jail and prison is human. And humans, sick and suffering, guilty and innocent, deserve compassion. Compassion means resources, it means respect (respect doesn't mean giving up security). This is hard, this is uncomfortable. Once when I was working in one of the standing libraries I heard one volunteer charmingly say to a middle-aged white man, "What are you doing here? You don't look like you belong here." My whole body winces just thinking about that. Who belongs in prison or jail? And who looks like they belong there?

Damien Echols or Michael Hutchinson had the story that looked like it belonged in prison or jail. He wasn't always likeable, he was a teenager, and we may never know for absolute certain if he's innocent. That's not the point. The point is that for 18 years he was on death row. 18 years. He didn't go outside for years, he was beaten, and most importantly he and the other prisoners were treated without any respect for humanity (Echols' accounts of the mentally ill and the developmentally impaired on death row especially are worthwhile). For 18 years, he was on death row and there was not evidence to keep him there. This is an abomination, but it's not the point. This is where the nuance comes in, for me, and where I think it is easy to get lost. Just because a person is treated like a person doesn't mean that 1. they are forgiven, 2. that they are not guilty, and 3. that they ought not be punished. This is not even about restorative justice (the new buzz word and also NOT a synonym for forgiveness)- this is about respecting one's own humanity by respecting that of others, by living the golden rule (if your religious tenets drive you to support capital punishment, then you ought to practice them in all aspects). Having compassion for the humanity of others (even the really sick fucks) is not a sign of weakness.

This book was not perfect, this person is far from perfect, the justice system is not perfect. I don't cry, but I cried (and on public transportation no less) as I read the last pages of this book. I don't know how anyone survives this, but I am grateful to this record. I don't think things happen for a reason, but I am glad to see this horrific experience become of maximum service to all those who read it. (less)

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Oct 08, 2012 Lorena Drapeau rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction-biographies

This book was written by Damien Echols who was wrongly accused and convicted along with Jessie Misskelley Jr and Jason Baldwin in the brutal killing of three eight year old boys in Ak. Damien was 18 at the time and these three came to be known as the West Memphis Three after HBO did a documentary on them. After much publicity and support from people like Johnny Deep and hundreds of people like me they were finally released in August of 2011 on an Alfreds (?) plea which means that they retain the...more This book was written by Damien Echols who was wrongly accused and convicted along with Jessie Misskelley Jr and Jason Baldwin in the brutal killing of three eight year old boys in Ak. Damien was 18 at the time and these three came to be known as the West Memphis Three after HBO did a documentary on them. After much publicity and support from people like Johnny Deep and hundreds of people like me they were finally released in August of 2011 on an Alfreds (?) plea which means that they retain their "guilty" status and can not sue the state for anything but are free. Like hundreds of others this case had a huge impact on my view of the police and our justice system. I spent hours looking over the evidence and watching the two documentaries over and over again. Eventually life caught up with me and I was too busy to do much but look in on the website once in a while but I never stopped thinking about those who were accused wrongfully and those three little boys and their families who would never be set free from their loss. i hoped and hoped that something would come out or someone come forward. It seemed so devastating wrong to me that not only were 3 precious little boys stolen from this world- but also three teenagers who had done nothing wrong except be 'different'. The day I came home and my husband told me the wm3 were getting released, I won't lie, I cried. I keep up with each of them through updates on facebook and I feel a sense of wonder and joy (i think damien would call it magick) every time i see a picture of them doing something that the rest of us take for granted. as soon as i heard damien was writing a book i bought it on pre sale and was ecstatic the day it arrived. I'll give my full review when I have finished it but so far it is exactly how I imagined Damien to be. He's a lot like me but BETTER. I don't think I could have survived the childhood he did or what came later. We were born in the same month and year and even though I had a less than stellar childhood his was horrific by most peoples standards. And yet he looks back at it with honesty and candor and even though he admits lingering hatred for some of his family he still attempts to see the positive traits in them.
I gave the book 5 stars not because he is a brilliant writer or anything like that but because he had the strength to survive all that he did and the courage to open himself up to the world by putting his thoughts down on paper. (less)

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Dec 28, 2012 Benjamin Siess rated it 2 of 5 stars

I had several problems with this book.

Like everyone else has noted, Echols' overuse of the word "Magickal" was beyond cloying. I could rant about this for a paragraph, but suffice it to say that it was infuriating within twenty pages and it only increased over the rest of the three hundred seventy.

Echols had a shitty life. One of the shittier imaginable. But he seems to have contempt for about ninety-five percent of people, which, given his history, is completely understandable. But it made th...more

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Jan 07, 2013 PJ rated it 4 of 5 stars

Damien Echols was sent to death row for a crime he did not commit. I have followed the case for about ten years. He and two co-defendants were released from prison using an Alford plea, a legal maneuver in which a defendant pleads guilty while maintaining innocence. The option was offered to them by the state of Arkansas after DNA evidence piled on to other overwhelming evidence that the three convicted in the murders of three 8-year-olds did not, indeed, commit the crime. The move allows Arkans...more

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Oct 19, 2012 shannon rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

I wanted to read this in part because I think the death penalty is a disgusting, evil, barbaric thing regardless of innocence or guilt, and like lots of high school weirdoes the wm3 story resonated with me and made me glad to be surrounded by progressive minded hippies in my youth. Man, this was depressing. I can never take the social work out of my perspective, and the stunted development is just really frigging sad. I quibble over what was a horrific miscarriage of justice but oy, magic(k) wit...more

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May 17, 2013 Manda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Echols doesn't always come across as the most reliable narrator, and while he openly admits to making a string of really terrible decisions growing up, it is this honesty that gives rise to the thought that there is another side of the story that isn't being told. Not to say he had any involvement in the West Memphis killings, on the contrary, there is no doubt that Damien Echols was an innocent man, a fact has been accepted by all but the legal system.

Even before the victims were murdered his l...more Echols doesn't always come across as the most reliable narrator, and while he openly admits to making a string of really terrible decisions growing up, it is this honesty that gives rise to the thought that there is another side of the story that isn't being told. Not to say he had any involvement in the West Memphis killings, on the contrary, there is no doubt that Damien Echols was an innocent man, a fact has been accepted by all but the legal system.

Even before the victims were murdered his life was horrendous, but while he often paints himself as a victim, there is enough irritating teenage angst and narcissism showing to wonder how much of it he brought on himself. Now, I'm not saying he deserved to grow up in poverty with neglectful and abusive parents and an absence of role models, but he comes across as so intelligent and insightful that you almost expect him to have known better. There were several times I wanted to grab him and shake some sense into him... it was like reading about my 17 year old self in some regards (and I was a total ratbag, so I get it!).

The descriptive language used was really quite lovely, he's no William Faulkner, no Mark Twin, no Tennessee Williams, but he brings the South to life and really includes it as a character in its own right. That itself makes the story a compelling read, and if you dont mind the metaphysical and spiritual tones that colour the whole way through, this is actually a really beautiful book.

More than once I wondered what his life would have become if he had not been imprisoned at such a young age, and as an innocent. As an unemployed teenage father, intelligent but uneducated and without the means to improve his life, his exposure to the spiritual path he eventually took and the dedication to his learning would most certainly have been in doubt, and there is little to suggest he wouldn't have ended up in prison on account of his obvious temper and the constant emotional turmoil life presented him.

Touching and raw, brutal and unflinching, it is more than the story of an innocent man on death row. It is a coming of age story, a love story, an ensemble comedy about eccentric family members and crazy cell mates. It is deep and thoughtful and at times really very funny. The man Damien Echols has become is definitely a person of great passion and great worth, and I wish him nothing but the best for his future.
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Apr 22, 2013 Kimberly Wells rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fic

There are a number of things that disappointed me about this book, but all of that is based on the fact that I'm one of those readers that wanted to know about every piece of evidence and every moment of testimony. I was fascinating about the Alford Plea that eventually freed these men. But it wasn't about that. It was about how Damien Echols survived the terrifying life he has had behind bars for 18 years and the poverty and harassment that he endured before then. Mr. Echols does seem very, ver...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Fiona Wynn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Damien Echols was one of three teenagers who became known as The West Memphis 3. Damien and 2 other boys were arrested and found guilty of the murders of three eight yr old boys in West Memphis Arkansas in 1993. Damien was sentenced to death and the other two received life sentences. They spent 18 years in prison before being released in 2011 after agreeing to an Alford Plea deal. The three have always maintained they are innocent. Damien's book takes the reader through his childhood and his ado...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

A good autobiography for a followup to the movies about the West Memphis Three, and I'd go so far as to say Nichols has a decent writing voice. The style--mixing his memories of his childhood with writings in prison--caught me up with its immediacy and clarity though it could get a bit challenging to follow at times since it wasn't a straight chronology or diary and included tangents. It clearly avoids the case itself and the details that might go with it but instead works at trying to create a...more

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Feb 27, 2013 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

I knew nothing about Damien Echols or that murder case. After reading this book, I still know nothing about the murder case but I feel like I've been inside Damien Echols' head or at least in his prison cell. I was shocked with the descriptions of life on death row: degrading, sickening, certainly not humane, nor the mark of democratic justice. I found it interesting that the author kept on saying that all inmates were insane, but not him apparently...I wonder how many other inmates were saying...more

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Feb 08, 2013 Nicola rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir-and-autobiography, kindle

Occasionally beautiful and frequently harrowing, Life After Death is a thoughtful (if raw) account of not just Damien’s Echols’ life behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit, but also the circumstances (poverty, prejudice) that led him there.

What’s incredible about Echols’ story is how well he’s able to tell it. This is no ghost-written, cash-in-quick memoir. It’s clear that Echols is a writer who has worked hard on his craft, and his descriptions of life before and after his conviction are visc...more

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Feb 02, 2013 Vani rated it 4 of 5 stars

I got this book because I had been following this case over the years. The first half of the book focuses on his life growing up in these small, poor towns and this was the part that I found more intriguing than some of the details of the case (which I knew about already--the book doesn't focus on the case that much). It is so disturbing the extent to which poverty and ignorance can be the dominant force in small towns. I had some sense of this trial being a witch trial, but he describes his hom...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Renee rated it 4 of 5 stars

In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.—who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three—were arrested for the murders of three eight-year-old boys in Arkansas.

All three boys were from trailer parks, uneducated and impoverished. None had the good sense to question the arrest or ask for an attorney throughout the process. They just assumed since they were innocent, nothing more needed to be done.

Life After Death is Echols's story of a corrupt and ass-backwa...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Go Flash Go! rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, memoir, favorites

No matter what your views on crime and punishment in the United States in general, or on the death penalty in particular, Damien Echols' memoir is certain to move you, challenge you, and devastate you. I only became aware of the "West Memphis Three" story a few years ago. I've since watched the HBO "Paradise Lost" documentaries with alternating degrees of sympathy and horror. I've always wanted to believe that our justice system functions (mostly) fairly and objectively, despite the occasional a...more No matter what your views on crime and punishment in the United States in general, or on the death penalty in particular, Damien Echols' memoir is certain to move you, challenge you, and devastate you. I only became aware of the "West Memphis Three" story a few years ago. I've since watched the HBO "Paradise Lost" documentaries with alternating degrees of sympathy and horror. I've always wanted to believe that our justice system functions (mostly) fairly and objectively, despite the occasional awful revelations of prisoners wrongfully imprisoned for years or even executed. Surely these were anomalies. Tales of brutality by prison guards? Well, those guys had it coming as an additional dose of punishment for their crimes. Echols' beautiful and heart-breaking memoir has forced me to examine my beliefs.

If you have not watched the three "Paradise Lost" documentaries, please do so, as they extensively cover the mind-bogglingly corrupt investigation into the murders of three young boys and the ensuing trial that landed Echols on Death Row and his two co-defendants with life sentences. In particular, the final documentary, Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, summarizes the first two films, and includes the events leading up to the trio's long-awaited freedom. Echols devotes very little time to these events because so much information is already available, but readers of his memoir should view them in order to gain a more complete picture of this travesty. Instead, Echols focuses on his impoverished upbringing and his eighteen years on Death Row, as he and others fought for his exoneration. When he writes of the stifling heat in the tiny, tin-roofed shack he inhabited in his childhood, you can almost feel it yourself. When he writes of mosquitoes feasting on his flesh in his prison cell, I could feel my own skin crawl.

The prison life he depicts is much like what we all imagine from movies and TV shows: abusive guards, horrible food, lack of sleep, etc. But Echols informs us that sadistic guards are the norm, rather than the exception. We also learn about the overwhelming filth, both of the prison itself and of some of the inmates due to their less than stellar hygiene practices. His misery in his cell due to cold winters was dwarfed only by the stifling summers. Time ceases to have any meaning other than bringing him closer to execution. Echols also writes in depth of his spiritual journey that led him from being raised Protestant to exploring Catholicism on his own as a teen. His general thirst for knowledge and his keen interest in spirituality led to an ongoing study of Buddhism while he was imprisoned.

It's hard to believe that if not for a couple of filmmakers who decided to make a documentary of the trial of the so-called "satanic" murders of three children, Echols may be dead today. These filmmakers quickly realized that the real story was not about Satanism, but rather it was about the entire Arkansas justice system that was willing to throw away the lives of Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. They were garbage - poor white trash, so what did it matter? Who cares if a sick child-killer is still on the loose as long as the public's bloodlust was sated? Evidence clearing the involvement of the three was not enough for the courts; it was only years of effort on the parts of Echols' supporters - celebrities and otherwise, and most significantly, his tireless wife, Lorri - that finally forced Arkansas to act. In other words, Echols was freed not by the normal means of little things like evidence, DNA, and alibi, but rather by public shame, scorn, and embarrassment from which Arkansas could no longer hide.

I've finished this book, but I still can't stop thinking about it. It depicts a life that I can barely imagine, but Echols depicts it all unflinchingly and without an ounce of self-pity, to which he is certainly more than entitled. There will never be another memoir like this, not only because Echols' beautiful writing skill is unlikely to be possessed by any other death row inmate, but also because any who have been wrongfully convicted are unlikely to be spared like Echols.(less)

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Jan 03, 2013 Melissa Presti rated it 5 of 5 stars

Life After Death is a painfully honest account of a life lost and found, and a compelling portrayal of a defunct justice system.

If there is one thing Echols is keen to omit in his memoir, it’s the details of the crime that falsely condemned him to Death Row more than 18 years ago. The West Memphis Three is nothing more than a misguided moniker that belongs to someone else. It’s chained to a past that does little to illuminate the subliminal message of his story. Google, decades of media attenti...more Life After Death is a painfully honest account of a life lost and found, and a compelling portrayal of a defunct justice system.

If there is one thing Echols is keen to omit in his memoir, it’s the details of the crime that falsely condemned him to Death Row more than 18 years ago. The West Memphis Three is nothing more than a misguided moniker that belongs to someone else. It’s chained to a past that does little to illuminate the subliminal message of his story. Google, decades of media attention, and the 3-part HBO documentary Paradise Lost can bring you up to speed. Those who are drawn to the celebrity of this case and Death Row inmates in general, "circling vultures" as Damien so aptly refers to, won’t find death and decay here.

I wasn’t expecting the emergence of a literary voice, or prepared for the convergence of our psyches as I repeatedly drew parallels between our personal ideologies. His writing is hauntingly beautiful, and still completely relatable. Much of the book is reflection on his teenage years, drawing on memories of an impoverished upbringing and corrupt local law enforcement, leading up to the events that would redirect his life. Interwoven with tales of subjection to the harsh realities of prison life, the extremes are at once evocative and horrific.

You knew kids in school like Damien; the goth kids dressed in black with long hair and Metallica on blast. The same stereotypes that defined Echols' character before he ever stepped in a courtroom. The exact social constructs that generalize an individual's interests and imply that they have any effect on the conduct of their character.

His writing is proof that there is something untouchable in all of us; a voice that cannot be silenced by opposition. After a trial that relied on a defense that found its strength by manipulating the interpretation of his journal and writings, it’s a wonder that Echols was able to put pen to paper again. In doing so, it provided a medium to reconcile a disconcerting childhood and events of a past he cannot change, to find the strength to maintain his innocence and find purpose amid a relentless force of condemnation.

Wrongful imprisonment took years of personal growth and development into adulthood away from Damien, yet gave him room to practice various forms of spirituality and consider his own mortality. It is the culmination of this exploration that places an incomparable value on life.

Regardless of what captivates the individual reader in this memoir, it's important to acknowledge that I don't identify Damien Echols as just someone who was on Death Row or as a car wreck to slow down and gawk at. He gave me profound insight by reminding me of all the simplicities we take for granted in life. I want to find an inner peace that triumphs over anyone's opinion of my character. And remember that falling snow in the dead of winter is the calm and beauty I love and cannot be deprived of.

Today, Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley are still fighting for exoneration. In a somewhat bizarre plea deal in August of 2011, the three men entered Alford pleas, which allow them to assert their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors have enough evidence to convict them. As part of the plea deal, they cannot pursue civil action against the state of Arkansas for wrongful imprisonment. Until they are pardoned and the crimes are stripped from their names, justice remains an intangible hope. (less)

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Dec 27, 2012 Shana Dines rated it 5 of 5 stars

First of all Damien is a phenomenal writer. It was really hard to read the atrocities that go on in our judicial system and in our prisons. He has a spirit that never gave up. His writing is raw and unadulterated. He is emotional, brilliant and talented.
If you want to read about how easy it is to convict the innocent just to have someone locked up for a crime that needs to be solved, you need to read this. This is true horror. It is hard to believe, but true that such hell goes on in not only b...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Mara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: death-penalty

Given how horrific the ordeal Damien Echols went through was (years spent on Death Row for a crime he didn't commit), it feels a bit churlish to give his memoir a low rating--but this book was a disappointment to me.

The title "Life After Death" made me expect a focus on the process through which he and the other members of the "West Memphis Three" were finally freed from prison and perhaps some thoughts about what it's been like to readjust to life outside. Instead, more than half the book is g...more

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Nov 10, 2012 Bren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Life after Death is a stunning piece of writing...Damien Echols takes us deep inside the torturous journey that has been his life, as he clearly and starkly weaves the images from his mind with the words on each page so that the reader is carried along with him on his journey.

Growing up in Mississippi, Tennessee, Maryland, Oregon, and Arkansas in impoverished circumstances and leaving school with a Grade 9 education, Damien and 2 friends were arrested when he was 18 and then were wrongfully conv...more

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Nov 03, 2012 Tracy rated it 5 of 5 stars

While this book has a lot of Almost Home in it, it is understandable, since it continues from there and those who don't have a copy of Almost Home won't need to buy that as well, as it is now quite expensive to obtain.

Damien's story is heartbreaking, and a poignant reminder that any one of us could be convicted an innocent person and sent to death row. It's emotionally raw and you're hard pressed not to put yourself into Damien's shoes as he takes you through what it was like for him to be in su...more

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Nov 01, 2012 Catherine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs

I’ve been horrified and fascinated by this story for years and was interested to read about it from Damien Echols’ perspective. The book has a slow start, but the background/early childhood information is important because it facilitates the reader’s understanding of the poverty and disenfranchised atmosphere in which he was raised.

Echols’ adolescence, arrest and trial, and years on death row, where most of the memoir was written, are candid and well-written. I was struck by his comment that ex...more

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Oct 31, 2012 cagey rated it 4 of 5 stars

Damien Echols was one of the infamous West Memphis 3 -- one of the 3 teenagers in West Memphis Arkansas who were wrongfully convicted of the murder of 3 young boys. Echols went to death row at the age of 18 and spent nearly 20 years there until his release as part of an obscure plea agreement known as an Alford plea, where he maintained his innocence, but plead "non contest" in exchange for his release.

Echols is not whiny, nor is he sympathetic. And he is certainly not asking for your pity. This...more

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Oct 21, 2012 Neal added it

for as much love and relief as i have for the west memphis 3 this book was a letdown in many ways. i didnt expect sensationalism or want it and it had moments but was very scattered. echols had some very lyrical passages as well as some stuck too deeply in the past ( like high school loves, etc. i assume this is the reprinted part from his first book). i admire his strength but was very disheartened to read him question his friend and co-defendent (jason baldwin) wordsat the age of 16 after rele...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Initially, I had a hard time reading this book because I felt uncomfortable with the author's tone and my perception of his statements in the "author's note"; but I'm glad I persisted and read through to the end. Certainly there's a lot of reason to be uncomfortable about the topic, and that's a good thing, since Damien did go through hell while in prison. I'm amazed he was able to survive the experience with as much grace as he seems to have.

I would have liked to read a more linear account of h...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memiors

This was an interesting read. It is a personal memoir of sorts, but includes scanned copies of handwritten letters, photos, artworks, blog posts, and an analysis of the case written by Joss.

I see mutterings of complaint because this work republishes a previously self-published memoir by Echols, but this seems to include some reflection after his release. I will say that I agree that this appears to have been hastily compiled, and I would advise any reader not familiar with the case to flip to t...more

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Oct 10, 2012 Alison rated it 5 of 5 stars

I had known a fair amount about the West Memphis Three, after having watch the first Paradise Lost documentary (I've now seen all three) but I wasn't expecting to learn so much from this memoir. Not only do we learn how impossibly dangerous it is to live in the South and be at all different in appearance and thought, we also get a look inside Death Row and how it cruelly operates. I felt myself growing a deep admiration for Damien through his exquisitely expressive writing, his spiritual journey...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Lily rated it 5 of 5 stars

* Hardcover: 416 pages
* Publisher: Blue Rider Press; First Edition edition (September 18, 2012)
* ISBN-10: 0399160205
* Author: Damien Echols
* Cover art: I like the color contrast and how the tattoos sand out.
* Over all rating: *****
* Obtained: My personal book shelf.

Life after death by Damien Echols
Reviewed by Moirae the fates book reviews

In 1993, teenagers Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr.—who have come to be known as the West Memphis Three—were arrested for the mur...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Sara rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir-biography, true-crime

I followed the WM3 case for a good ten years before the three wrongly accused men were released. This is the memoirs of Damien Echols, the supposed "ringleader" who spent half of his life on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

Absolutely heartbreaking and fascinating, this book is a mix of past recollections and writings made from prison, with some personal photos. For someone with a limited education this book is remarkably well written and shows the authors' obvious natural high intelligenc...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Meghan rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a real heartbreaker.

While his case is obviously a terrible injustice, I found the descriptions of prison life and American poverty equally depressing. Surely we can do better as a country.

On mental illness among prisoners:
"I live with men who haven’t been in contact with reality for years. The truth is that insanity is rampant on Death Row, as is retardation. The law says that the insane and the mentally retarded (the law’s terminology, not mine) cannot be executed, yet it happens on a r...more

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Mar 28, 2013 Joan Kite rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography

Most jailhouse memoirs I have read are manipulative missives soaked in denial and self-delusion screaming unabashedly, "I came to Jesus. Now please let me out."

So I was pleasantly surprised to read "Life After Death" and equally horrified. Damien Echols is a fated member of the Memphis Three, one of three teenagers wrongfully arrested and convicted for the murder of three Arkansas children in 1993.

One year after his arrest, Echols was sentenced to death. To Death Row, he went.

An innocent man d...more Most jailhouse memoirs I have read are manipulative missives soaked in denial and self-delusion screaming unabashedly, "I came to Jesus. Now please let me out."

So I was pleasantly surprised to read "Life After Death" and equally horrified. Damien Echols is a fated member of the Memphis Three, one of three teenagers wrongfully arrested and convicted for the murder of three Arkansas children in 1993.

One year after his arrest, Echols was sentenced to death. To Death Row, he went.

An innocent man does not need to defend himself. Instead, in "Live After Death," Echols takes on the task of observer, bearing witness to the horrendous things that happen to people behind bars. Unspeakable injustices. Echol's undeserved fate gave him a front-row seat to the horrors of Death Row.

To survive his journey inside the prison system, Echols burrows into himself. He devotes his time seeking magic within. He pursues any and all spiritual practices made available to him: Buddhism, the Course of Miracles, Theosophy, "The Golden Dawn" philosophy, etc.

Echols makes no claim to personal spiritual enlightenment. He simply confesses to devoted and intense practice. His only motive? To retain his sanity.

But somehow a lone, innocent man generated enough energy from a jail cell to find himself helped by celebrities like Eddie Vedder, Marilyn Manson, Johnny Depp and film director Peter Jackson.

He went to prison at 19. He was released at 36. He suffered a 17-year initiation into the Keepers of Forbidden Knowledge club. "You don't make any memories in prison - at least none you'd want to keep, or look on fondly." He carries and shares the brutal experiences of other prisoners who were unjustly abused, tortured, and killed. "Everyone seems to agree that it's wrong to execute the retarded, yet it continues to happen. There are retarded people waiting to be executed right now," he writes.

It's not the writing that is compelling. It's Echols' voice. Here is a man who has seen things no one should ever see. Still, he steps from his dark prison cell into the light of freedom bearing a record of crimes committed against criminals by people who think they are above the law. Echol's psyche is clearly wounded, but he has somehow protected his spirit in a fire of faith and practice.

One is left to wonder. Is magic the ability to use your will to effect change in the world or is Echols' just one helluva lucky guy?
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About Damien Echols

Damien Wayne Echols, along with Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, is one of the three men, known as the West Memphis Three, who were convicted in the killing of three eight-year-old boys Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore at Robin Hood Hills, West Memphis, Arkansas, on May 5, 1993.

Damien Echols was convicted of murder by a jury and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He was...more

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Quotes from Life After Death

“Someone sent me a letter that had one of the best quotes I've ever read. It said "What is to give light must endure burning." It's by a writer named Viktor Frankl. I've been turning that quote over and over in my head. The truth of it is absolutely awe-inspiring. In the end, I believe it's why we all suffer. It's the meaning we all look for behind the tragedies in our lives. The pain deepens us, burns away our impurities and petty selfishness. It makes us capable of empathy and sympathy. It makes us capable of love. The pain is the fire that allows us to rise from the ashes of what we were, and more fully realize what we can become. When you can step back and see the beauty of the process, it's amazing beyond words.” — 21 people liked it

“Ghosts can haunt damned near anything. I have heard them in the breathy voice of a song and seen them between the covers of a book. They have hidden in trees so that their faces peer out of the bark, and hovered beneath the silver surface of water. They disguise themselves as cracks in concrete or come calling in a delirium of fever. On summer days they keep pace like the shadow of our shadow. They lurk in the breath of young girls who give us our first kiss. I've seen men who were haunted to the point of madness by things that never were and things that should have been. I've seen ghosts in the lines on a woman's face and heard them in the jangling of keys. The ghosts in fire freeze and the ghosts in ice burn. Some died long ago; some were never born. Some ride the blood in my veins until it reaches my brain. Sometimes I even mistake myself for one. Sometimes I am one.” — 13 people liked it

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