Live From Death Row

The style that Abu-Jamal uses is what made me interested in reading this.

At the start of the selection, he begins to repeat himself about how he has faith in the justice system of the United States. Soon, he describes that feeling in the past tense. He no longer has the faith, but it was something he once had. He still hopes that it will pull through, but his doubts keep from overindulging in that hope. Then, nearing the end, his last reference to the courts describes his view well. "...the mentality of the criminal system of injustice". After so much time, his view slowly began to change.

I can only assume that through all of this writing, much time had passed. The paragraphs seem to skip a lot to tell a story about different events. The one thing that I was curious about was how much time HAD passed and seeing the effects it had on him.

The best part about this stor definately was the end. Even through the stories of men going crazy from the isolation, Abu-Jamal tells about the visiting of his daughter. Even though he could not interact with her as he would want, he still maintained a positive father figure by making his daughter laugh and look at the good things in their lives. I was curious how long he had been in there at that point, because I would have figured a death row inmate would be a little bit more bitter about his situation than being so upbeat to his family. It definately was a good way to close the reading.