Pictures at an Execution [Paperback]

Wendy Lesser (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674667360 | ISBN-13: 978-0674667365 | Publication Date: July 21, 1998

This book is about murder - in life and in art - and about how we look at it and feel about it. At the centre of Wendy Lesser's investigation is a legal case in which a federal court judge was asked to decide whether a gas chamber execution would be broadcast on public television. Lesser conducts us through the proceedings, pausing along the way to reflect on the circumstances of violent death in our culture. Her book is also a meditation on murder in a civilized society - what we make of it in law, morality and art.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Murder literature forces us, or lures us, or invites us to identify with the murderer. It is an invitation we readily accept," declares Lesser in this alternately stimulating inquiry. Editor of The Threepenny Review , Lesser ( His Other Half: Men Looking at Women Though Art ) here takes as her theme why we are drawn to murder as real-life spectacle and in art. A 1991 San Francisco trial in which KQED-TV sued San Quentin prison's warden for denying the station permission to broadcast the execution of a convicted murderer forms the centerpiece of Lesser's meditation; she views capital punishment as state-sanctioned murder. Shuttling between fact and fiction, she offers a rarefied analysis of murder as depicted in a vast array of movies, novels, stories, mysteries, TV shows, true-crime books, plays and photojournalism. Ranging from Poe to Joe McGinniss and Norman Mailer, from Macbeth to Silence of the Lambs , her searching essay will appeal most to intellectual murder buffs. First serial to Los Angeles Times Magazine.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The germination of this book was a California lawsuit to televise the execution of Robert Alton Harris, but, like a crack in a china saucer, Pictures branches out to examine many more issues. Inevitably, questions bubble up about making the event a spectacle; crossing the threshold into the barbaric; and violating this or any inmate's privacy. Digging deeper, Lesser considers how much sympathy a murderer engenders. Do we sympathize partly because we can see ourselves in him and partly because he is dropped into the interminable justice system? If we read a story about a fictional murderer, what lessons do we learn about our capacity to feel, to be absorbed in the drama, to remain detached? For some answers, Lesser sifts through Poe, Turgenev, Didion, Fearing, among others, and reinforces her points with help from writers who have examined real-life murderers. Essential for those seriously contemplating their position on guilt, grief, punishment, responsibility, and cruelty. Lesser has produced a stunning effort that will leave questions echoing in readers' minds after the book is closed.
- Lisa Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (July 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674667360
• ISBN-13: 978-0674667365
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,760,928 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too Much Criticism, Not Enough Substance, February 6, 2007

By 

LT "reb8 maven" (SF CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pictures at an Execution (Paperback)

Lesser does not pretend to be engaging in anything other than literary criticism to identify the social and moral dimensions of televising executions, but I find that the intersting parts are when she directly discusses KQED's court case. KQED, the San Francisco public television, was seeking permission to broadcast an execution at San Quentin State Prison.

I acknowledge that literary criticism is ultimately about how literature relates to life, and that should include my life, but for some reason, I do not connect to the lessons Lesser draw from the various books she analyzes. Instead, I come away thinking, "Well that sounds like an interesting book, but I'm not sure how it relates to me or the KQED case." I am especially interest now in reading Primo Levy's The Drowned and The Saved.


One of Lesser's main themes is that we can and should identify with the people who live on death row, and not just abstractly. She seems to claim that because of our passivity and ignorance we unjustly permit or tolerate the death penalty to occur, and that this makes all of us murderers too. The real victims in this drama are the condemned on death row. I am opposed to the death penalty but not in the visceral way she is - this book did not change my mind.

Ultimately, I would say that this book may be of some service to you if you are personally offended by the death penalty and are looking for ways to articulate that experience. If you have clearly established boundaries and values regarding the death penalty, then I would say that this book will irritate you without changing your mind very much.