Life after life: Interviews with twelve murderers

by Tony Parker

Valerie wants a job, Frank wants to run the marathon, Edgar needs a woman in the spare room - Paul, Philip and Alan just want to hold on. This dramatic piece of reportage draws on interviews with murderers to create stark, uncompromising portraits of people attempting to rebuild their lives.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, Psychology

194 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1990

About the author

Tony Parker (25 June 1923 – 3 October 1996) was an oral historian whose work was dedicated to giving a voice to British and American society's most marginalised figures, from single mothers to lighthouse keepers to criminals, including murderers.

Born in Stockport, Cheshire, Parker was a conscientious objector during World War II, and directed to work in a coal mine. He moved to London and worked as a publisher's representative at Odhams Press. He campaigned against capital punishment and became very interested in prisons and their occupants, eventually focussing on the experiences of prisoners after release.

Tony Parker died in Westleton, Suffolk, having just completed his study of his American counterpart Studs Terkel.

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tony Parker turned the interview into an art form by finding extraordinary ordinary people and letting them talk. He edits out his questions. You never heard people like these speak in their own voice at length before. Always they get filtered through the educated minds of the novelists or documentary makers, and they’re given to us in 15 second soundbites. Here they talk for ten pages at a time. Ordinary extraordinary lives.

This book is about twelve murderers, none of them in any way famous. I see there were hardly any manhunts involved, after their horrible act they either wandered around in a daze or gave themselves up. This was a reread. This time I made notes on all twelve but I’m only including five for this review. Three of the others were child killers and I don’t think you’d want to read those details.

NOTES ON FIVE OF THE TWELVE

DANNY

Aged 21 when interviewed. He had already spent 7 years in prison. He was 14, drunk, and went to see his grandfather. His parents wouldn’t give him any more pocket money. There was a big row when the old man also refused any money and he stabbed his grandfather in the neck with a pair of scissors that happened to be on the table between them.

I liked him, he was a nice man. What happened was mostly an accident.

EDGAR

aged 78. The story this guy tells is the fishiest in the book. He thinks the murder was actually a terrible accident. If so, police and judge and jury perpetrated a dreadful injustice. He wasn’t getting along with his wife. They went for a drive in his work van. It had a sliding door. She wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He drove up a steep country road. At the side of the road was a deep ravine. The door flew open and the wife shot out and died. He said he didn’t push her. The more he describes his life since being released on license the more he sounds like a violent man. He says “there were one or two little scrapes or bits of bother”.

CAROL

aged 41. Ten years in prison so far.

No more men for me, I’ve had enough of men.

Adopted as a baby, then the adoptive mother died and the father remarried. She hated the new wife and the feeling was mutual. She was a wild child, always truanting and finally sent to live in a children’s home. Had sex first at age 11. Had a baby at 17, gave her up. Drifted from man to man, not quite a prostitute. But she ended up on a boat having been picked up by a drunk Dutch sailor. There was an argument. He went off to his cabin and fell asleep. She found a knife and stabbed him six times.

I don’t even know who he was.

Thinking about her lifestyle at the time she said

I suppose I could easily have ended up being the one who was killed.

That is so true.

ANDY

aged 45.

I was first put in an institution when I was 11. That’s 15 years I’ve had in the outside world, and 20 inside.

My father carried a knife, my brothers carried knives, everyone. You wore a shirt and trousers and shoes and a knife.

He was walking the streets late one night and a guy walked past him and muttered something Andy took to be a proposition.

I pulled out my knife and I turned around and I stabbed him…I was trying to hurt him, give him something to remember me by…I don’t know how many times I stabbed him but it was quite a few.

In prison some guys will become religious and some will become addicts if they weren’t before and some guys will get educated for the first time.

I studied English literature, psychology and sociology and maths. I read E M Forster, Aldous Huxley, Bertrand Russell, Jung, people like that. I’d stay up all night reading.

BETSY

aged 60. Longest serving female life prisoner up to that point (1990). She spent 30 years inside.

Tony Parker makes a rare personal comment :

Talking to her was as difficult as trying to interview a fully turned on bathtap.

She got TB as a child and was in sanatoriums for years She met a woman named Janet there who was 6 years older than her and fell in love. Janet loved her too but she was married.

I should describe what we had as a close lesbian relationship but without sex.

When they were both released from the sanatorium Janet moved in with Betsy’s family and everything was nice until Janet decide to visit her husband. Betsy got frantically jealous, stormed over to her house and after a big row stabbed her once with a knife she’d brought along for that purpose.

After that her TB returned, so that at her trial she was brought in on a stretcher. She was found guilty and given the death sentence (which was abolished in the early 60s). This was later commuted to life due to her poor health. I thought that was strange – they give her a death sentence but because it looks like she’s going to die anyway they think it's not appropriate. Ridiculous. Anyway, Betsy did nothing but what they call “hard time” for the next 30 years, she couldn’t stop rowing with people and threatening to kill them.

***

This is a classic true crime book, highly recommended.

[Shaun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

I mean...really...wow.

I'm not quite sure how I came across this book, but feel fortunate that I did.

In order to express what I found so compelling about this book, I should start by saying that I read because I want to understand, experience, and empathize with the broad range of experiences that constitute what it means to be alive. Whether fiction or non-fiction, a book is good in my book as long as it gives me some new insight into that thing we call our shared humanity.

That said, this collection of interviews with UK "lifers," a group of nine men and three women who were serving life sentences for murder was absolutely captivating.

Aside from the interviews themselves, which were at times tragic and at other times inspiring, the presentation was nothing short of ingenious. Presenting these stories as monologues affords them a quality and a depth that could have easily been lost/or at least lessened in any other presentation.

Notes/synopsis of each interview:

Danny

Danny received his life sentence after murdering his grandfather. Only fourteen at the time, he went to his grandfather looking for pocket cash. When the old man would not relinquish the funds, an argument ensued. In a rage, Danny picked up a pair of scissors and stabbed his grandfather in the neck.

Prior to the murder, Danny says he lived a somewhat "normal" life. At the time of the interview, he is twenty-one and out on parole, trying to build a life for himself while dealing with the reality of what he has done. When asked if he worries he might ever lose control again, he answers with a hasty yet defiant "no."

Edgar

An old man of 78 at the time of the interview, Edgar has been out of prison for 15 years. He was originally convicted of killing his wife. Of course, Edgar claims it was all a mistake, an accident. You see, according to him, he accidentally pushed his wife out of a moving van. Interestingly, at first the reader is tempted to believe him...at least until Edgar goes on to explain all the "misunderstandings" that have occurred since.

Carol

Carol was adopted. At the age of seven she is sent to live with her grandmother, after her mother dies. A year later, she is reunited with her adopted father who is now remarried. Carol does not get along with her stepmother or her stepsister and eventually ends up in a children's home. At the age of eleven she loses her virginity to a friend's boyfriend. Her teen years are spent drifting from man to man, where she willingly cleans, cooks and provides sex in exchange for a "home."

At this point we learn that at seventeen, she had gotten pregnant and given birth to a daughter she named Stella. She eventually gave Stella up for an adoption. In the interview, Carol reveals that Stella is now twenty-three, about to be married, and anxious to meet her. She discusses her fears and hopes regarding the meeting.

She then reveals her crime. At about the age of thirty, she describes drinking too much. One night she goes out to a bar with a friend. They meet two Dutch sailors who invite the girls back to their boat. They take a taxi, but upon reaching their destination, no one has any money to pay the driver. Carol and her date go onto the boat to get the money for the livid driver. Once back in his cabin, the sailor begins to undress. He's forgotten all about the money and is only interested in having sex. Carol wants none of it. She goes into the kitchen and finds a knife. When she returns, the sailor pretends to be asleep, but reaches up and grabs her as she bends over him. She stabs him six times.

While in prison, she discovers that she is a lesbian and on her release she plans to live with her lover, who was released earlier and is already preparing for their future together.

Paul

Paul suspects a man who lives across the hall from him has stolen something from his trunk. He walks into the man's room, where he finds his neighbor asleep, and literally beats his brains out.

While in prison, he falls in love with his psychologist who is married at the time, but who eventually divorces. They become platonic "lovers" and end up together when he is released on parole.

Arthur

Arthur has a history of depression and when he suspects his wife is cheating on him, he drugs and then drowns his oldest daughter and shoves her body into a cupboard. He later decides to do the same thing to his younger daughter (except rather than drowning her, he smothers her with a pillow) and then eats a poisoned cake he has baked for himself. While in prison, he receives treatment for his depression and upon release to parole he feels he will be able to cope...although he realizes life for him will never be easy, if only because of his past.

Andy

Andy, a troubled teen who came from a home where fear and violence were the norm, kills a complete stranger while walking down the street after the guy utters something suggestive and pats him.

In prison, Andy begins to educate himself. He completes five O level courses and then moves on to several A level courses. He wants to study psychology, though he's not sure what he would do with it. He struggles with what he's done and says he is not optimistic for the future.

Valerie

Valerie is sentenced to life after strangling the other woman, also her best friend. Upon her release (while in her forties) and much to her own surprise, she finds true love and religion and now hopes to help other troubled girls like she used to be.

William

William, or Billy, is a big bully who was never much of a student but nevertheless has success as a young man buying and selling. Still immature, he gets mixed up with a shady crowd who sees value in Billy's size. He eventually participates in a murder, when a man he is sent to find bolts. While in prison, he decides to make the most of his experience (devouring books by the dozen) and upon release he returns to his family and even finds love.

Philip

In trouble from an early age, Philip is found guilty of the unthinkable...killing his own eighteen-month-old son. Philip has always been convinced that Jack was the result of an adulterous relationship his wife had while he was serving time. One night, while his wife is gone, he is left to care for both his children. He puts Jack, whom he resents on multiple levels to bed without feeding him or bothering to change his diaper. The child, who has soiled his diaper, cries all night. Enraged, Philip goes into the child's room. When his screaming and verbal abuse does not console the child, he throws it into the fire. He then puts the child in the sink and pours boiling water over it. Finally, he punches the child and swings it up against a wall until the crying stops. When the daughter awakens, he sends her back to her room and goes to find his wife, saying he thinks he's hurt their son.

Out on parole, he is haunted by his crime. He claims he's had several relationships that always end...not because of what he's done in his past (apparently none of the dozen or so women cared) but because he is emotionally unavailable. He still loves Lorna, his first wife...who actually resisted the divorce he instigated despite that fact that he brutally murdered their child.

Betty

Betty is a tuberculosis patient who falls in love with another female patient. Upon release, she invites the girl who had been in an unhappy marriage, to come and live with her. On returning from a visit to her husband, the girl admits to Betty that her husband demanded his "rights" during the visit. This disgusts Betty and she kicks out her would-be-lover. The girl goes to her mother's house, where Betty, carrying a knife, tracks her down and stabs her in the chest.

She is originally sentenced to die by hanging but then receives a reprieve secondary to her poor health. She eventually recovers and upon release finds love and companionship via a dog, which has now become the center of her life. She says knowing the dog depends on her keeps her focused and motivated.

Alan

The product of a broken home, Alan is rejected early on by his mother. At the age of nineteen, Alan kills a policeman while fleeing the scene of a burglary. He talks about the loneliness of prison life, saying his sentence was a life for a life except his is being taking slowly...one day at a time. "I took somebody's life away yes, and in return they're doing the same to me. Only their way of doing it is slowly day by day, relentlessly, bit by bit. Eating you away, shrinking you smaller and smaller, inch by inch, depriving you more and more of what's left of your personality and feelings, every shred of your individuality."

Frank

Frank is kept in solitary confinement. The most hated of all prisoners, he is a convicted child rapist/killer. He claims he doesn't remember his crimes. His fellow inmates call him the marathon man because in addition to building tiny sculptures with match sticks, he is training for a marathon. He, several other prisoners, and three guards are running the race to raise money for charity x.

[Andrea Hickman Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating. Also terribly depressing - how can people do such awful things? Some of them seem to realise the awfulness of what they've done, some of them don't seem to realise that they're awful people who should stop putting themselves in situations that can only end badly (for others, but certainly for them from their perspective). So very interesting to see what they say about themselves and why they did what they did (though quite a few of them don't really know, which I think must be fairly honest because I don't know why I do some of the things I do, like my complete inability to walk past my cats without picking them up and kissing their tummies).

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

murderers are people too. a bad joke, but actually this is the main thing i experienced from this book. in a non-humorous way.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A play about people serving life sentences for murder in England, assembled from interviews with actual prisoners; in form it reminded me somewhat of The Laramie Project. Like Laramie, this play is effective and disturbing because it forces you to view people you might otherwise find repugnant as people: you sympathize and feel repulsed by them in turn, often within moments of each other.

[Sophie Carsenat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking, fascinating, disturbing. 12 life-sentence murderers telling the story of how they got there, and Tony Parker transcribes their tales seamlessly and eloquently.

[Joey Muenich · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am a Tony Parker fan. At times this one got to be a little further than I ever wanted to go. I love sharing his stories with my mom and wonder if this one will give her too many ideas of how to bring my dad to an end.
But then, as always, the approach and circle back ending made it all worth the ride. I’ll share it with mom and it will be okay should she end it with pops.
The ladies’ stories were especially intriguing.
This is hard to find in the US. I had to order a copy from the UK.
I now have a new used book store to go back to. Online for now and in person one day.

[Hollie Le Lion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice easy read. I really felt like I could see and hear the way the characters acted and sounded in the interviews. I really liked that the interviewers questions weren’t included in the book.

[Shaun Deane · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe the interview, non-play version lives up to the hype. This did not, for me.

[Georgia · Rating 5 out of 5]

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 / 5 stars

As someone that works with people that have committed criminal offences (although juvenile offenders instead of adult “lifers”), I absolutely loved this book.

I liked the fact that the author focused on both telling the stories of the crimes that put the subjects behind bars but also focusing on what happened after as they tried to rebuild their lives.

I’ve recommended this book to several people because I found it very hard hitting, interesting, and fascinating.

[Don Dealga · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book is a masterpiece. You simply must read it.