Bruce Jackson is James Agee Professor of American Culture
and SUNY Distinguished Professor of English at the State University
of New York at Buffalo. He is author of numerous books and films,
including the book Pictures from a Drawer: Prison and the Art of
Portraiture.
Diane Christian, a poet, scholar of religious literature,
and recognized documentarian, is SUNY Distinguished Teaching
Professor of English at the State University of New York at
Buffalo. Jackson and Christian cowrote Death Row in addition to
producing and directing the film of the same name.
If opponents of the death penalty were to choose one book for their
cause, this could well be it. . . . Jackson and Christian write in
a direct, journalistic style, poignant and to the point. This book
will appeal to those with a specific interest in criminal justice
and the death penalty as well as curious casual readers.""- Library
Journal Starred Review;
""Jackson and Christian's book gives some of those men a face.
Therein lays its beauty.""- The Rag Blog;
""All readers concerned about the U.S. prison system and capital
punishment will benefit from this important work.""- ForeWord;
""In This Timeless Time is as close to perfection as a publisher
can produce.""- The Federal Lawyer;
""An unflinching commentary on the judicial system and the fates of
the men they met on the Row. . . . They made a body of work no one
else could.""- Prison Photography blog;
""A uniquely powerful contribution to the literature on prisons,
criminal justice, and capital punishment in the United States. . .
. Not to be missed.""- Journal of Southern History;
""In this comprehensive, well-crafted book . . . Jackson and
Christian build upon the photographs and interviews from death row
in Texas that yielded their 1979 book and documentary Death Row
(DVD included). Here, photos and text reveal inmate life, discuss
capital punishment, and share the fate of each man: execution, a
commuted sentence, parole, or after more than two decades, an
innocent verdict. . . . [T]he book raises important questions about
the judicial system and the practice of capital punishment in our
society.""- Publishers Weekly;
""The book deals in emotion magnificently. . . . A moving piece of
photojournalism and a fitting argument against the death
penalty.""- Texas Books In Review;
""In This Timeless Time is a cry of the heart . . . and should
become the definitive book on the medieval cruelty of our Death
Rows. Once read, none of us can turn our view away and say, 'We did
not know.""- Michael Ratner, attorney and president emeritus of the
Center for Constitutional RightsIn This Timeless Time presents
images and words of condemned men who are otherwise abstractions
and provides a compelling history of death row over the last thirty
years. Nothing like this book exists, or could ever exist again. I
could not recommend this book more strongly.--Billy Sothern, death
penalty lawyer and author of Down In New Orleans: Reflections from
a Drowned CityWith absolute fairness and profound honesty, Bruce
Jackson and Diane Christian carry us into the tragic world of a
group of prisoners living on a Texas Death Row. Through
unforgettable stories and photos, we come to feel the suffering,
guilt, and confusion of these men, as well as their
inextinguishable human dignity. We are also given a vital lesson in
the strange element of chance that lies at the foundation of
capital punishment, our correction system's 'most significant act.'
This powerful book calls us to reflect on the extraordinary
circumstance of prisoners not 'doing time' but waiting for time to
run out on Death Rows all over America.--Sister Helen PrejeanIn In
This Timeless Time, authors Bruce Jackson and Diane Christian have
accomplished something quite remarkable. Granted virtually
unprecedented access to one of the darkest, least-seen sectors of
American society (Death Row), and they have emerged from this
foreboding place with something terrible and beautiful. For what is
more terrible than this modern-day place of skulls, this (to quote
a former Supreme Court justice, Harry Blackmun) ""machinery of
death""?Beauty? Where can beauty be in such a haunting, fatal
place? And then one looks at photos, black and white, showing men
at play, men in tight discussion, men with visages of hopelessness,
loss, and hope. Yes, hope.The access shown here, to make such a
project possible with few restrictions, would scarcely happen
today. The authors reveal a Death Row (in Texas's infamous Ellis
Unit) that was, as horrible as it was, light years better than the
bitter present.A revelation came to me as I gazed at these pictures
from the recent past, and over a thousand miles away: every death
row is different; and every death row is the same.Jackson and
Christian have pulled back the proverbial curtain so that all can
see the American Way of Death.--Mumia Abu-Jamal, co-author of The
Classroom and the CellIn the over twenty years since Bruce Jackson
and Diane Christian's work on a Texas death row began, correcting
the injustices of capital punishment has been much too slow. In
This Timeless Time underscores how urgent and critical it is to
give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless. This first-rate
work speaks to our shared need as Americans to right the wrong that
is capital punishment.--John Lewis, U.S. congressman and civil
rights leaderMost us us have formed whatever opinion we hold on the
death penalty without any direct experience of what life is like
inside an institution specially designed by trial and error to
utterly dehumanize its inhabitants (and by inevitable, toxic
osmosis, its employees) in order that WE THE PEOPLE are able to
take their lives at a given time on a given date. Pray that In This
Timeless Time is as close as you ever get.--Steve Earle,
singer-songwriter and author of I'll Never Get Out of This World
Alive""These photos rewind, then freeze, time, catapulting me back
to a place that still invades the core of who and what I am today,
nearly thirty-four years later. Most everyone in this book was
executed. Most everyone said they were innocent. I did too . . .
and I was. 'It's not about innocence or guilt, Kerry,' Bruce
Jackson told me in 1979 as I peered out of my cell during our first
interview. 'It's about what we do as a society.' I didn't get it
back then, but I do now. With this book, Bruce and Diane have
captured the face of America's death penalty machine.--Kerry Max
Cook, former prisoner ""Cook, Ex: 600,"" exonerated through DNA
testing after serving 22 years
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