Life After Death

The definitive memoir by Damien Echols, one of the West Memphis Three, falsely convicted for three murders he did not commit, about Echols' childhood and adolescence, his arrest and trial proceedings, and the eighteen tortuous years that ensued on death row.

In 1993, three 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 young boys in Arkansas. The ensuing trial was rife with inconsistencies, false

testimony, and public hysteria. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison.

Echols, deemed the “ringleader,” was sentenced to death at age eighteen. In a shocking

reversal of events, all three were suddenly released in August 2011, and now Echols

shares his story in full: from abuses by prison guards and wardens, to descriptions

of inmates and deplorable living conditions, to the incredible reserves of patience,

spirituality, and perseverance that kept him alive and sane for nearly two decades. Like

The Glass Castle, Damien Echols tells a complicated, painful childhood story, and like

Dead Man Walking, it is destined to be a classic of riveting, explosive prison literature.

Echols reveals himself to be a brilliant writer, infusing his narrative with tragedy and

irony in equal measure; he describes the terrors he experienced every day, his anger

and outrage toward the American justice system, and he provides a window into life on

death row in heartbreaking, agonizing detail.