Title: Sentenced to death
First published: 1997
Description: The criminal justice system in America is as powerful a shaper of history and society as its better-known counterparts - the military, politics, government, and technology. In a country that lacks a mandatory death sentence for specific crimes, the American strategy for execution proves to be based more upon distinctions between offenders than upon distinctions between offenses.

Five important novels - McTeague, An American Tragedy, Native Son, In Cold Blood and the Executioner's Song - bring readers a vivid awareness of America's punitive codes. Fach details the story of a life that leads to the gallows.

Sentenced to Death places these works against the historical background of crime and capital punishment in America, a nation where public discourse on crime is dominated by images of the electric-chair and the gas chamber, by maximum security prisons, by hardened convicts out on parole. Such images, in turn, mirror and shape the exercise of punitive power.
Subjects: American Legal stories, American fiction, Capital punishment in literature, Executions and executioners in literature, History, History and criticism, Law and literature, Legal stories, American, Trials (Murder) in literature, Todesstrafe, Peine de mort dans la littérature, Roman, Roman américain, Droit et littérature, Histoire, Histoire et critique, American tragedy (Dreiser, Theodore), McTeague (Norris, Frank), In cold blood (Capote, Truman), Roman judiciaire américain, Dreiser, theodore, 1871-1945, Wright, richard, 1908-1960, Capote, truman, 1924-1984, Norris, frank, 1870-1902, Mailer, norman, 1923-2007, American fiction, history and criticism, 20th century, LITERARY CRITICISM, American, General
People: Frank Norris (1870-1902), Norman Mailer, Richard Wright (1908-1960), Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), Truman Capote (1924-)
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS374.L34 G84 1997