There are thirty books in this collection.
That number is not a coincidence and it is not an achievement. It is a record. A record of what one minister, theologian, and spiritual advisor has witnessed over the course of several years of standing in the rooms where the state of the United States of America kills people.
The thirty books divide into three collections, each with its own character and its own claims. The first volume, The Campaigns for the Departed, is the record of Jeff Hood's presence with specific men on specific death rows facing specific execution dates. These are the campaign writings - the op-eds and prayers and vigil speeches and spiritual reflections produced in real time, often hours before scheduled deaths. The men in these pages are not abstractions. Kosoul Chantakoumanne. Scott Eizember. Steven Nelson. Arthur Brown. Anthony Sanchez. Casey McWhorter. Kenneth Smith. Michael Smith. David Hosier. Emmanuel Littlejohn. Anthony Wainwright. Greg Hunt. Anthony Boyd. They had names before the state gave them numbers, and Hood refused to let the machinery of death flatten them into cases.
Read these thirteen books knowing that the men in them are dead. Read them knowing that Hood watched most of them die. Read them knowing that he got in his car afterward and drove home and then sat down and wrote about what he saw. Read them knowing that the writing is not closure and not catharsis and not healing. It is witness. It is the refusal to let the state's paperwork be the only document that survives.
