That Bird Has My Wings
An Oprah's Book Club Pick
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- 49,99 lei
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- 49,99 lei
Publisher Description
That Bird Has My Wings is the astounding memoir of death row inmate Jarvis Masters and a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit and the talent of a fine writer. Offering scenes from his life that are at times poignant, revelatory, frightening, soul-stirring, painful, funny, and uplifting, That Bird Has My Wings tells the story of the author’s childhood with parents addicted to heroin, an abusive foster family, a life of crime and imprisonment, and the eventual embracing of Buddhism.
How does a man sentenced to die for a crime he insists he didn’t commit find peace, meaning, and a path to redemption?
Overcoming Adversity: From a childhood of neglect with heroin-addicted parents to the brutalities of the foster care system, this is a raw look at a life lived against the odds.Wrongful Conviction: Sentenced to death for murder, Masters’s fight for his life becomes a profound journey into his own past and the justice system that failed him.A Path to Redemption: Discover how the teachings of Buddhism, with guidance from luminaries like Pema Chödrön, helped him find a clear conscience and inner freedom on death row.Inspirational True Story: Told with unflinching honesty and a complete lack of sentimentality, this is an unforgettable account of the resilience of the human spirit.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This searing autobiography recounts the horrendous circumstances that landed the author on death row. Born to heroin-addicted parents and raised in a series of abusive foster homes, Jarvis Masters never had much of a chance. By 19, he was imprisoned in San Quentin. But it wasn’t until he was sentenced to death—after an accessory-to-murder conviction in 1990—that Masters, then 23, converted to Buddhism and found new meaning in life. As he recounts his harrowing tale of life on the streets and in the broken foster system, Masters paints an incredibly moving picture of what led to his life of crime, making a compelling case for justice reform. That Bird Has My Wings is a poignant and truly uplifting tribute to the power of the human spirit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this polished tale that belies the author's raw origins, Masters (Finding Freedom), who has been imprisoned on San Quentin's death row since 1990 and become a devout Buddhist, recalls the neglect, abuse and cycle of crime and hopelessness that relegated him to prison by age 19. As a child in the late '60s, Masters and his siblings were shut up in their house in Long Beach, Calif., because their mother and stepfather had turned the place into a heroin den. Filthy, starved and whipped, the children eventually attracted the attention of neighbors, then were scattered among foster homes. Despite a happy period spent with a caring, elderly Christian couple, Jarvis was once again uprooted, this time to a hardened, joyless home where the other foster boys quickly taught him the ropes to survive. Dispirited, he ran away repeatedly from age 10 on, and the book largely follows his trajectory from one institution to the next, from McLaren Hall, where he enjoyed a sense of belonging, to the abusive Valley Boys Academy, where he was trained like a pitbull to fight the other boys. Being united with his extended family in Harbor City was both a blessing and a curse, because they gradually dragged him into a downward spiral of robbery, violence and jail. Masters's claim of innocence in the murder that landed him on death row is beside the point in this work that's a frank, heartfelt rendering of a young life that should have mattered.
