Customer Reviews

Pictures at an Execution

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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.