About this Event
A powerful and startling account of the unsparing connection between a convent of cloistered nuns and the condemned women on Texas's death row, exploring questions around crime and punishment, faith, and retribution in America as only Lawrence Wright can.
"Redemption gripped me like the best crime novel and left me fundamentally changed. The relationship between two groups of isolated women teaches us the most elusive of values: true empathy." --Belle Burden, author of Strangers
In the fall of 2014, Deacon Ronnie Lastovica visited a women's Pr*son in Gatesville, Texas and gave communion to the women on death row. Moved by the meeting, the Deacon vowed to return weekly, but he knew he couldn't help these women alone. He called upon the Sisters of Mary Morning Star, a group of contemplative nuns in Waco, Texas, to visit the seven condemned women with him. What follows is an incredible story of a spiritual alliance between two groups of women who, though they couldn't seem more different, are living uniquely similar lives.
Lawrence Wright takes us into the death row unit, laying bare their stories. Some of the women in Pr*son wrestle with guilt over the suffering they've caused; others fiercely maintain their innocence. As Wright learns more about their cases, unethical police practices and improper forensic methods cast doubt on whether some of these women actually committed the crimes for which they'll pay the ultimate price.
Clear-eyed and rousing, layered and morally complex, Redemption explores ideas of retribution, spirituality, and the question of absolution.
Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker, a playwright, a screenwriter, and the author of eleven books of nonfiction, including The Looming Tower, Going Clear, and God Save Texas, and four novels, The Human Scale, Mr. Texas, The End of October, and God's Favorite. He has received many honors, including a Pulitzer Prize for The Looming Tower. He and his wife are longtime residents of Austin, Texas.
Krys Boyd has been host and managing editor of KERA-FM’s flagship midday talk show Think since 2006. Krys began her career along the U.S.-Mexico border, working simultaneously at radio and television stations as a reporter, anchor and news director. A graduate of TCU, Krys returned to North Texas in 1999 to serve as News Director for Broadcast.com, and later Senior Producer of Broadcast News at Yahoo.
Krys joined KERA in 2001, hosting the nightly radio talk show Conversations. Later, she wrote and produced documentary and educational television programs, including the critically-acclaimed, nationally-broadcast JFK: Breaking the News in 2003, and served as producer and co-host of the Emmy Award-winning public affairs program On the Record. Think was named “Best Radio Talk Show” of Dallas by the Dallas Observer in 2009, and Krys was declared “Best Broadcaster for Radio in Dallas” by D Magazine in 2010, and won the PRNDI award for best call-in program in 2012. Krys and her husband, Matt, live in Dallas and have four children.
Event venue & nearby stays
Interabang Books, 5600 West Lovers Lane, Dallas, United States
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