Redemption

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 prison 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 prison 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.