What is it like for a convicted murderer who has spent decades behind bars to suddenly find himself released into a world he barely recognizes? What is it like to start over from nothing? To answer these questions Sabine Heinlein followed the everyday lives and emotional struggles of Angel Ramos and his friends Bruce and Adam—three men convicted of some of society’s most heinous crimes—as they return to the free world.
Heinlein spent more than two years at the Castle, a prominent halfway house in West Harlem, shadowing her protagonists as they painstakingly learn how to master their freedom. Having lived most of their lives behind bars, the men struggle to cross the street, choose a dish at a restaurant, and withdraw money from an ATM. Her empathetic first-person narrative gives a visceral sense of the men’s inner lives and of the institutions they encounter on their odyssey to redemption. Heinlein follows the men as they navigate the subway, visit the barber shop, venture on stage, celebrate Halloween, and loop through the maze of New York’s reentry programs. She asks what constitutes successful rehabilitation and how one faces the guilt and shame of having taken someone’s life.
With more than 700,000 people being released from prisons each year to a society largely unprepared—and unwilling—to receive them, this book provides an incomparable perspective on a pressing public policy issue. It offers a poignant view into a rarely seen social setting and into the hearts and minds of three unforgettable individuals who struggle with some of life’s harshest challenges.
Sabine Heinlein’s writing has appeared in the Iowa Review, The Brooklyn Rail, City Limits, Tablet Magazine, Die Zeit, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and other publications.
“Among Murderers is a remarkable achievement, an eye-opening work of journalistic empathy in the best tradition of Katherine Boo, Ted Conover, and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. In studying the cases of these three just-released convicts, Sabine Heinlein raises significant policy and philosophical questions about crime and punishment and the nature of "rehabilitation." This is a triumphantly humane work of reporting and storytelling.”—Scott Stossel, editor at The Atlantic and author of the award-winning Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver.
"With this unsentimental yet deeply empathetic look at the lives of ex-cons struggling to make it on the outside, Sabine Heinlein establishes herself as the Orwell of rehabilitation, American-style."—David Samuels, contributing editor at Harper's Magazine and contributor to The Atlantic and The New Yorker.
“Sabine Heinlein's Among Murderers is a remarkable, clear-eyed portrait of three men trying to create lives for themselves after serving decades of hard time as punishment for having committed the ultimate crime. Working in the journalistic tradition of Joseph Mitchell and A.J. Liebling, Heinlein brings these men to life as fully-realized, fascinating if flawed characters. Heinlein's readers won't be able to think of crime or punishment in the same way.”—Robert S. Boynton, author of The New New Journalism
“Among Murderers joins a small but important group of literary books that take an intimate look at murderers. Detailing individuals’ painful steps and difficult quotidian lives as they try to find a place on the outside and come to terms with their crimes, this book has much to tell us about crime and punishment in America today.”—Sam Swope, Dean of the New York Public Library's Cullman Center Institute for Teachers
256 pp.6 x 8
9780520272859$29.95|£25.00Hardcover
Feb 2013