Almost Home: My Life Story Vol 1
by iUniverse, Inc.

	Almost Home: My Life Story Vol 1
	Customer Rating: Sales Rank: 41491 Available from Amazon
	$14.36

Book Description

<I>Almost Home</I> 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.</p> <I>Almost Home</I> 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.</p>

Reader Reviews

What Margaret Cho has to do with this situation, I will never know. She wrote the introduction. I thought at first that this was intended to be some kind of comic writing. Instead, it's the autobiography of Damien Echols, a young man in a small town in Arkansas currently on death row (along with his friend Jason and other friend Jessie serving a life sentance) for murdering three small boys. Cho's hook along with her comedy has always been to defend those who are different or odd, those who feel less alone. I can admire that, but I am just amazed that she would preach the word for this man, who she admits she doesn't know and who she said committed the murder. That aside, this was an excellent look inside the monster, the beast, the horror, the evil that is Damien.

Damien grew up poor white trash in Arkansas, having little advantages, little money, little hope for the future. He turned into a heavy metal poser, wearing all black and getting into magic because it was the cool thing to do for all of those who consider themselves outsiders. Like a lot of kids, we all dabble in the dark arts. It annoys people, makes our parents angry, gives us attention. Most of it is just a show. Not for Damien. In his mind, he was Satan's vessel. He became the subject of a witchhunt after the children were killed because he was different. Granted, he was visably different. But enough witnesses have come forward saying that he did and said things that an innocent person would not. Satan made him do it? No, Damien made Damien do it. Look at that face on the cover of the book. That's not an innocent, sensative, vulnerable child's face. That is the face of a killer, a killer who knows how cute he looks and how he can fool us.

And, Damien became a father while behind bars. He has gotten to physically hold his baby son, he could not be there for his birth, nor will he see him grown up. Instead he has been changed by fatherhood. While he cannot be with his child, experiencing the miracle of life rather than the pain of death he wanted to inflict on not just these three boys but others around him. He is up there with Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ed Gein, and all the other truly twisted people who have murdered. I'll bet some of their friends and family said "He was different". Different doesn't make someone a murderer. Evil makes one a murderer.