Rooted

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay.

Demand for a moratorium is not a call to coddle criminals. It is a demand for accountability and integrity. It is a demand that we investigate how and why multiple innocent people have been sentenced to die. It is a demand that we hold law enforcement, prosecutors, and expert witnesses whose actions can lead to state-sanctioned murder accountable. The State of Mississippi’s continuing pursuit of executions, including its recent unaliving of Charles Ray Crawford despite known systemic failures, is not justice—it is a willful disregard for human life and the principles of a fair legal system. Mississippi’s death penalty system isn’t merely flawed; it is built upon a foundation of discredited science and unreliable evidence. The death penalty is the most extreme and irreversible form of punishment, and we cannot afford to use it when human error is so prevalent. It is time for Mississippi to put on its Big-Boy drawers and take responsibility.

The term “exoneree” means a person who has been officially cleared of all charges related to the crime. In other words, “exoneration” means that prosecutors, judges, and oftentimes juries, got it completely wrong and were ready to kill an innocent person. As of 2025, seven people have been exonerated from Mississippi’s death row after being wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death. They are:

1. Curtis Flowers (exonerated 2020). Curtis was tried six times for the same 1996 quadruple murder. The first three convictions were overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court, and the next two trials ended in mistrials. The sixth conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2019 (Flowers v. Mississippi) due to prosecutorial misconduct, specifically the racially discriminatory use of peremptory strikes by District Attorney Doug Evans. In September 2020, all charges against Curtis were dismissed with prejudice, meaning they cannot be refiled. While this ended the case and he was released, the legal basis was prosecutorial misconduct.

2. Eddie Lee Howard (exonerated 2021). Eddie was convicted in 1994 of the murder and rape of an eighty-four-year-old woman. He was exonerated when his conviction was heavily based on the discredited testimony of Dr. Steven Hayne and bite-mark analysis, which has been largely rejected as junk science. DNA testing later excluded Howard and pointed to another perpetrator.

3. Sherwood Brown (exonerated 2021). Sherwood was convicted of a 1994 murder during a robbery in Desoto County. He was exonerated when the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled he received an unfair trial because the prosecution withheld critical DNA evidence that pointed to other suspects.

4. Kennedy Brewer (exonerated 2008). Kennedy Brewer was convicted in 1995 of the murder and rape of his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. He was exonerated when DNA testing from the crime scene, fought for by the Innocence Project, excluded Brewer and matched another man, Justin Albert Johnson.

5. Michelle Byrom (exonerated 2014) Michelle was convicted in 2000 of murder-for-hire in the death of her husband. In 2014, the Mississippi Supreme Court took the extraordinary step of overturning her conviction and death sentence before her execution, citing ineffective assistance of counsel. The court noted that her son had repeatedly confessed to the murder, a fact her trial lawyers failed to properly present. Facing the prospect of a new trial, Byrom pleaded guilty to a greatly reduced charge of manslaughter and was released for time served.

6. Corey Maye (2011) Corey was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for the 2001 shooting of a police officer during a raid on his home. He claimed he did not know the intruders were police and was acting in self-defense to protect his family. His conviction was a major point of controversy in the legal world. His sentence was eventually reduced to manslaughter, and he was released in 2011 for time served after accepting a plea deal.

7. Sabrina Butler (exonerated 1995). Sabrina was convicted of capital murder in the 1989 death of her nine-month-old son in Columbus. She was exonerated at a retrial, when her defense successfully argued that the child’s death was not a homicide but the result of a rare medical condition, and that his injuries were consistent with Butler’s attempts to perform CPR. She was acquitted.

This list of exonerations is evidence of a broken system. Though the judicial branch has at times corrected its own worst errors by vacating convictions, the leaders of Mississippi have chosen to perpetuate this broken system rather than reform it. The political branch chooses to expand, not restrict, their execution machinery by granting the Department of Corrections broad discretion in carrying out executions, having at their disposal such methods as lethal injection, nitrogen hypoxia, electrocution, firing squad, and hanging. They should have used instead a spark of creativity to call for investigations into the root causes of these repeated miscarriages of justice.

Again, seven individuals from Mississippi’s death row have been found to be innocent. Let these exonerees serve as a reminder of the fallibility of the Mississippi criminal justice system. Until Mississippi puts a halt to its executions and conducts a full, transparent investigation, every leader who supports the death penalty is complicit in a system that has been proven incapable of guaranteeing it will not kill an innocent person.

If Mississippi chooses to be pro death penalty, then Mississippians should take ownership and responsibility to ensure that all measures have been taken so that no innocent persons will be unalived. We must stop this nonsense notion that it is inevitable and acceptable that “sometimes” we get it wrong. NO! We should never get it wrong because that life taken can never be given back. Mississippi can’t return my breath of Life, so I need Mississippi to get this WRONG right.

L. Patri is of Black and Natchez Indian descent, and he is the father of one daughter and a grandfather of five grandchildren. He was born on the river in Natchez, Mississippi, and for the past three decades, he has been challenging his wrongful conviction of capital murder. He writes in multiple and hybrid genres, including thought pieces, journalism, short fiction, letters, and memoir.

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This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay.

About time, if you want to know my opinion. For three months, starting on November 1, 2023, I had been living in solitary confinement on Mississippi’s death row for an RVR (Rule Violation Report) about having a contraband cell phone. For the past two weeks, the prison administration had been stalling and b**********g me about moving me out of solitary. Meanwhile, they had moved other men who had been in solitary for a much shorter time than I had. Finally, I requested to talk to the Watch Commander supervising Unit 29. He left (taking his sweet time) and later ordered that 29J Building oversee my moving out of confinement. As I said, it was about time.

So. The past two days, I’d been carrying out the moving day routine that I’ve done for over two and a half decades now. If I had to guess, I’d say I’ve done this over 50 times, starting at Unit 32C, then in 32B, and now in 29J.

Let me take you back in time and rewind some of the b******t I’ve had to endure that caused this routine to come into existence. Listen. In the summer of 1997—but don’t quote me exactly, as my memory is shitty these days—about four state prisoners escaped from Unit 32C; supposedly, two death row guys were involved. That escape happened on a Friday but it wasn’t until Sunday or Monday when the administration realized these men were gone. Finally, a guard noticed that some windows had been cut out and two guys under state custody were missing. All hell broke loose. They began shaking down every cell in earnest to check every window. That is when they found out that a death row guy was also involved because when they banged on his window with that rubber mallet, the whole damn thing fell out.

The Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) administration responded with what they must have thought was a good plan. Every three to four days, they would move every guy on death row to a new cell in an ordered fashion like this: I was in cell #94 at this time of the escape, so my first move was into cell #95, while the guy in #95 moved to #96, and so forth. With each move, the guards would shake us down, bang on the windows and bars with rubber mallets, and move us one cell over. I travel as light as possible because years ago, we battled MDOC over the issue of having too much paperwork or personal belongings. To keep down b******t between myself and staff, I only possess the necessary things. One, maybe two items each of personal hygiene and stationery items (except pens—I collect colorful pens like candy) and my legal work. I only possess the legal work that I am filing at the present. I can fit all my personal things in two laundry bags or one legal box. Yeah, a hope chest type thing.

Now. The problem with this moving procedure is that I could fall in behind some really nasty, filthy man—and believe me when I tell you, back then there were some unreal men who would leave semen on the walls and floor, spend their days digging in their noses and leaving funky boogers everywhere, and leave behind piss spots and rotten food. Then there were men who thought that because we were being forced to move every three to four days, that it was not on them to clean up their cells, so they began leaving filth behind. I guess guys got confused about the “good for the goose, good for the gander” mentality. Because this isn’t good for goose, gander, or gerrymander; it’s just wrong all the way around.

MDOC moved us this way for almost a year until some of us got fed up and began resisting. When they told us to pack up, we told them to pack it up. When they told us to get handcuffs to move, they had to call in more manpower to force us to move because they could only move us one at a time, as back then we couldn’t be out together. It would take them ten to twelve hours rather than four to five hours, and then we refused to go until they cleaned, or should I say half-ass cleaned, the cell before we moved into it.

Now, I’m thinking most of y’all are saying, ”That ain’t resisting, fool,” and quite possibly you are right. However, Parchman’s death row is run a little differently than the prison you’re probably imagining, as our guards barely do any work at all. But it didn’t used to be that way. Until recently, we were shackled and waist-chained down in irons, and the guards had to haul every item, each time we moved. That’s fifty-plus men and so many countless boxes of legal papers and books and s**t. These days, when we pack up and move ourselves with them just standing around watching, it is way easier than it is for MDOC to send twenty or more guards to move us as they tote around every guy’s possessions. I guess you can say that “resistance” means that if I have no choice and I have to move, then I am going to be moved.

Eventually they ended that nonsense of moving us every few days. But during this time period, I had developed a cleaning system that I continue to this day that puts me at ease no matter which man lives in the cell before me and no matter how many poisonous insects think they will keep living there after I move in.

It goes like this. Before washing and scrubbing and cleaning, I take the bottle of hand sanitizer I use for germs, and I use the spray bottle to squirt liquid into every nook, cranny, crease, crack, and crevice in the cell. Then I take my lighter and set it ablaze so that fire runs throughout, like wildfire or lightning. One strike and it turns straight through and burns for five or six minutes, hopefully clearing the cracks out of every pest and insect. I do this because at one point in these three decades that I’ve been in this hellhole, I used to sleep on the floor, laying down only a sheet or a blanket. I still never sleep on the mattress here, and I don’t want anyone crawling in my bed unwanted as I sleep. So far, I believe this has worked, as I’ve never been bit by a spider or any other insect, unless you count these blood-sucking Mississippi mosquitoes every year. I still haven’t found a solution to those except knocking their ass out of the air with flip-flops. The problem with that is that when I pop these little suckers, blood sprays all over the walls, so then I have to sanitize and clean that up, too. Ugh! Serenity now.

I spray and set fire to the whole room for at least five rounds. When I feel comfortable in my mind that I have it all cleared out, I set about sweeping up, washing down every inch of the walls, floor, ceiling, bed, window, door, and bars, you feel me. I use my water hose, which is made from the tubing casing on coaxial cables that I fit into the sink spout and push an ink pen tip on into the other end, which causes the water to shoot out sharply. This really digs up grime and dirt and is able to fully clear the window’s screen on the outside as well as the inside. Once I’ve cleaned and mopped up the water, I need rest because this is hard work. I am not using a broom or mop but am literally on my hands and knees with a floor rag.

You’re hearing this and you’re thinking that’s one really clean guy, right? Wrong. I’m just trying not to have disease carriers and poisonous things crawling into my bed. I prefer to sleep alone if I can’t sleep with who I want, and trust me when I tell you that there isn’t anything inside these cold walls and steel that I want sleeping in my bed.

Now that I’ve said this, maybe you’re noticing the same thing that just flashed across my mind: this state isn’t satisfied trying to put a needle in my arm to poison and kill me; they have literally placed me in a death trap where poisonous insects can kill me in case they don’t. Damn. This is really ruthless. Listen, though. This next man who moves into the cells that I vacate—luc…

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my Bottom Reader Book Club conversation with Talamieka Brice and Preston Lauterbach earlier this month. Talamieka is an award-winning Mississippi artist and filmmaker who grew up on the blues—she was the perfect conversation partner for our talk with author Preston Lauterbach about his latest book, Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King. The book is a deep dive into the lives and legacies of the Black musicians (many of whom have ties to Mississippi) who influenced Elvis Presley’s music and stage presence. In our hourlong discussion, we touched on Lauterbach’s inspiration for writing the book, the incredible life of blues artists like Big Mama Thornton and Arthur Crudup, the psychic weight of being a musical impostor, the exploitative nature of the music industry, and more. Below I’ll share some highlights from our conversation, but I hope you can listen (or watch) the whole book club session!

Who Gets the Gold and the Glory?

Talamieka made a great comment about the book’s cover, and what a striking image it is to have Elvis’s silhouette filled in with a collage of the musicians profiled in the book. Preston agreed.

It's about the gold and the glory. The thing that I think we're really concerned about and have been for a long time is, “Was Elvis racist?” And while I don't necessarily think he was, I think that there are much bigger issues that this story allows us to explore that are way more pertinent to American culture. And that is who is recognized as important and who is compensated as important. And when you look at the faces of those people that make up that composite of Elvis Presley [on the book cover], I don't think anybody in there got any money nor much glory. So really, to me, this was an opportunity to spotlight those historic figures.

Big Mama Thornton’s Freedom

The story of Big Mama Thornton that Preston tells in the book is one that resonated most with Talamieka and me. Here was a woman whose legacy has been defined by her chart-topping song “Hound Dog,” which was later performed by Elvis, ultimately skyrocketing him to fame. As a Black woman trying to make it in the predatory music industry, she experienced a lot of hardship, a lot of unfairness. But she also ended up performing around the world to crowds of adoring fans. As Preston argues, Big Mama Thornton’s legacy shouldn’t be defined by the disparities between her and Elvis, because she didn’t see herself that way.

Elvis is on top of the world. Elvis has all the money. But in the years just before his death in 1977, Big Mama Thornton's out on the road. She's living a full life. She's completely free. And Elvis doesn't have that freedom. He's got the money. He's got the fame, but he's a prisoner. Big Mama was out doing her thing. She was being her true self in exactly the way she wanted to. She didn't make a lot of money. I'm definitely not here to suggest otherwise in terms of getting her due.

Again, I don't love narrative of, “well, we should pity this person because of these disparities.” No, we should celebrate how powerful the person was, how brilliant the artist was, how brave the artist was, and how unburdened the artist was from all this b******t we're arguing about. She didn't give a damn. She was going to drink her old granddad whiskey as she was driving down the road, trying not to hit anything and terrify her passengers. She was having a damn party.

On the Parallel Paths of Phineas Newborn Jr. and Elvis Presley

The story of the Newborn brothers—Calvin Newborn and Phineas Newborn Jr.—and their connection to Elvis Presley is one of the more surprising and circuitous tales in the book. Preston had a personal connection to Calvin, having interviewed him early on his career, and then returning to Calvin when he realized the tangible impact he had with Elvis. The Newborn brothers were more interested heading for the “jazz mountaintop,” but Preston makes a case for the parallels between Elvis and Phineas Newborn Jr., who is wildly hailed as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time.

Nobody at that time realized that the king of rock and roll and the phenom of jazz were both rooted in Memphis blues, not just in a cosmic sense, but in a very straight, very real sense. They played in the same club. They had the same musicians around them. They had the same drummer giving them the beat. I mean, it's even more interesting than just saying, well, it was something in the water or it's in their DNA. No, they were at the same time playing with the same people. And you listen to the two artists and you would never know. You would never know that they come from the same scene. But it gives you a window of the excellence of Memphis music at the time.

And finally, Preston left us with a song recommendation. He says to check out one of Elvis’s favorite groups, the Spirit of Memphis Quartet, and the song “On Calvary” in particular. Here it is!

Thank you to Beth Kander, MS Liner Notes, Susan M Glisson, and many others for tuning into the live video. Big thanks to Preston Lauterbach for taking the time to talk to us about his book, and to Talamieka Brice for her incredible co-facilitation. I hope you enjoy the replay of this terrific and thought-provoking conversation.

Save the date! Our next book club conversation will take place live on Substack on October 21 at 7pm. I’ll be discussing the short story collection Bodock with author Robert Busby along with my co-moderator Shira Muroff.

You can listen to these book club recordings in the Substack app, in your web browser, or on Spotify. Subscribe to the show on Spotify to get notifications when new episodes are released. Recorded book club conversations are only available to paid subscribers, but the live book club sessions will continue to be free and open to all readers.

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This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. Listen to the voiceover if you want to hear Mr. Patri read this essay.

I am finding this to be the hardest story that I have written. So far, it has taken me more than six tries because each time I try, I find myself not being objective. I don’t want to be accusatory and place blame on anyone undeserving; I truly believe the judge who is presiding over my habeas appeal has been fair in his handling of this petition. I also know that this case is very complicated. In the words that state prosecutors used once or twice, it’s “convoluted.” So I fully understand the judge has a lot to consider before he decides how to rule.

Objectively, I believe that he must be leaning in my favor, as I believe I have placed many facts before him to do this. Objectively, I know that if he does rule in my favor, then one of the things he has to consider is what impact a favorable ruling for me will have on the State of Mississippi—Natchez in particular. I think he’s aware that if I am exonerated I will go after the district attorney, state district attorney, city and county law enforcement offices in an effort to hold them fully accountable for the more than three decades I have been on death row. I will hold them accountable for the pain and suffering and loss that I’ve endured during those years. The number of irreplaceable people that I have lost to death over the decades. The things I could have shared with them to make lasting memories together. No amount of money can compensate for this loss. No amount of money can compensate for how sleepless nights drain my body when I have nothing to think about except how I can’t control my own day to day living. No amount of money can compensate for three decades of living without being able to tell people or myself a direct answer about what is happening. No amount of money can compensate for always having to suppose a ruling might be in my favor because it’s taking so long, yet also knowing that it very well may not be in my favor.

It’s more than five years now that I’ve been in Federal District Court. So I’m constantly anxious for a ruling. Sometimes I’m so anxious for a ruling, that I don’t even care whether or not it’s in my favor, just so long as I get an answer.

Again, I want to be objective. I want to be understanding of the situation, yet I find it difficult that it has now been a full year, one month, and two weeks that I have been awaiting a single judge to read, review and make a ruling. It is possible I can be waiting for another day, another week, month, year, or five years, because there is no timetable for the judge to make his ruling. Yet I am not given the same luxury of time. When I filed my application to amend my habeas appeal petition, the judge set a scheduling order that detailed how much time I and the state prosecutors would have to respond to the briefs and motions; if we requested additional time, we would be given a deadline to do so.

Knowing this timetable, I calculated approximately how long it would take me to complete my habeas filing which was two years, give or take three months. However, the state prosecutors waited until I had filed my petition, saw what it said and what was in it as far as evidence (documented affidavits, etc.) and then they filed a motion to have the petition dismissed. They must have thought that the district court would go along with them the way the state court did and somehow ignore and dismiss what I am filing in district court. This took a year of going back and forth before the judge denied that garbage motion to dismiss; then, he ordered state prosecutors to file their response to my petition, which took prosecutors another year to do. They filed for extension of time motions before finally filing a 340-plus page response as part of the corpus of documents that the judge is currently reviewing.

This was the prosecutors’ way of further playing games: they are in full possession of what they used to put me on death row, whereas I was not given access to the complete files of my case. If it only took me six months to file the petition, then it should have taken them half of that time to respond and refute my claims. And it most definitely should not have taken 340-plus pages to do so when my petition was not half as many pages. Sometimes I try to do the math. It took me three months to file my habeas corpus petition legal brief, then another four/three months for the state prosecutors to respond to that brief’s filing. Then it took me eight/ months to file my memorandum brief plus respond to what the prosecutors had to say in my petition brief. It should have only taken the prosecutors equal time to respond to the memorandum. So what should have taken two and a half years, maybe three years, to complete all fillings for myself and prosecutors, actually took four years. We completed the filing one year and a half ago, and I’ve been awaiting a ruling that could come at any day, a year from now, or five years from now. I am stuck in this grey area.

There are times when I see the legal mail officer coming through the gated fences around the administrative building while I’m outside in a basketball recreation yard pen. I will stop what I’m doing until she gets close enough for me to ask who she has mail for. Many times, she will call us out by name. Each time I see her, I am hoping my name is one of the names she’ll call.

Objectively, I know the judge, being fair minded, has to read those 340-plus pages. I know he has to weigh and consider them along with the other pieces of the case that he’s weighing and considering. I know he has to take his time before he decides, but does that time need to be immeasurable? For someone in my situation who has been sitting inside of a concrete and steel cage for more than three decades, I can’t help but wonder just how long such a ruling should take—two years? Five years? Ten? As these years pass, will my health take a downward spiral? Will I live that much longer? These are the things that go through my mind. I find myself counting the time that’s passing the way I did today. It’s more than five years now that I’ve been in Federal District Court. So I’m constantly anxious for a ruling. Sometimes I’m so anxious for a ruling, that I don’t even care whether or not it’s in my favor, just so long as I get an answer. Obviously I want the ruling to be in my favor, but I don’t like just sitting in this cage waiting as the years pass me by, you understand. Yea, I know. It sounds crazy.

There are times when I see the legal mail officer coming through the gated fences around the administrative building while I’m outside in a basketball recreation yard pen. I will stop what I’m doing until she gets close enough for me to ask who she has mail for. Many times, she will call us out by name. Each time I see her, I am hoping my name is one of the names she’ll call. If I’m inside unit 29 J Building and sitting in my cell and I hear someone call out that legal maiI is on the zone, I will get up off the steel rack bed and go stand at the cell door. I watch as the same officer walks onto the zone, around the steel tables, and up the nineteen stairs to pass the mail out to whomever is getting it. I’ll just stand there. Watching. Hoping that she’ll come to my door, that she’s going to call my name with some letter from the court about how the judge has ruled. I find myself feeling disappointed that it’s not me she’s coming to see. Every time this happens, I have to readjust my mind and settle myself mentally once again into the waiting because I have no control over when my petition will be ruled on.

In some regards, I count myself lucky that I have many other things to occupy my mind and my time. I have people in my life who will listen…

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my Bottom Reader Book Club conversation with Martha Park on Wednesday. I appreciated your thoughtful questions and comments. Martha is a writer and illustrator from Memphis, Tennessee, and the author of the recently released World Without End: Essays on the Apocalypse and After, a collection of essays that deal with climate crisis, faith and doubt, motherhood, and more. I decided to share some highlights from the conversation below. Please let me know if you’ve read the book and if you have a favorite essay!

Solutions vs. Surprise

I asked Martha about the significance of the roseate spoonbills on the cover (which she designed and illustrated). She described how the birds’ presence in a restored wetland area that was initially intended for ivory-billed woodpeckers represented less of a solution to the climate crisis than a moment of unexpected surprise and wonder. There’s so much we can learn when we let go of expectations of a specific outcome, especially when nature is involved.

Last month I had the pleasure of joining the Bottom Reader Book Club for the first time as the author guest, rather than facilitator. It was thrilling to be on the other side of the proverbial table, knowing that I’d be in good hands with my perceptive friend and fellow 2025 debut author Catherine Simone Gray as facilitator and our cohort of gracious and insightful readers tuning in with their insights and questions. There’s a reason why multiple authors have said that the Bottom Reader Book Club discussions rank among their favorite author appearances—these are conversations that go below the surface, touching on writers’ craft decisions, their missteps and unexpected triumphs, their conceptions of place and home, the nitty gritty of their journeys to publication.

In our conversation about Split the Baby, we talked about why I decided against reaching out to my former stepmother during the writing of the book, my shock of discovering the role of the Klan in a Colorado town where I spent a large chunk of my childhood, and how my understanding of home has changed since I started Rooted just a few years ago. I hope you enjoy the conversation!

You can listen to these book club recordings in the Substack app, in your web browser, or on Spotify. Subscribe to the show on Spotify to get notifications when new episodes are released. Recorded book club conversations are only available to paid subscribers, but the live book club sessions will continue to be free and open to all readers.

My deep gratitude to Catherine and the Bottom Readers who joined the call. Thanks again to our partners: Mississippi Book Festival, Lemuria Books, and Friendly City Books.

Save the date! Our next book club conversation will take place on August 6 at 7pm with Martha Park about her debut book, World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After.

Plan ahead and check out our upcoming book club picks!

August 6 at 7pm: World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After with author Martha Park

September 3 at 7pm: Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King with author Preston Lauterbach and moderator Talamieka Brice

September 13: Don’t miss the Mississippi Book Festival!

I’ve been sitting too long on this wonderfully rich conversation that our Bottom Reader Book Club had in May with memoirist and TV writer Sarah LaBrie about her debut memoir No One Gets to Fall Apart—I’m so glad to finally share the recording with paid subscribers.

No One Gets to Fall Apart grapples with the toll that a mother’s mental illness takes on her daughter, its effects rippling outward to the family as a whole. The book’s subject matter is heavy, but Sarah’s approach is light—she deftly draws on literature and philosophy to bolster her narrative, while also taking the reader along her parallel journey of writing a “failed” novel. In our conversation, Sarah shared the evolution of the title for her memoir, talked about the way Houston still feels like home despite now being firmly rooted in Los Angeles, and also explained the inspiration for the branching structure of her book, which, yes, she envisioned “like a river breaking off into tributaries.” I found that image so striking!

You can listen to these book club recordings in the Substack app, in your web browser, or on Spotify. Subscribe to the show on Spotify to get notifications when new episodes are released. Recorded book club conversations are only available to paid subscribers, but the live book club sessions will continue to be free and open to all readers.

Thank you, Sarah, and the Bottom Readers who joined the call and asked such insightful questions! And thank you, Shira Muroff, for jumping in to facilitate this conversation with me at the last minute. Thanks again to our partners: Mississippi Book Festival, Lemuria Books, and Friendly City Books. The team at Red Squared recorded and produced this discussion at their studio in The Hangar.

Plan ahead and check out our upcoming book club picks!

August 6 at 7pm: World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After with author Martha Park

September 3 at 7pm: Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King with author Preston Lauterbach and moderator Talamieka Brice

September 13: Don’t miss the Mississippi Book Festival!

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer, L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. You can listen to the voiceover if you want to listen to Mr. Patri reading “Robbery by Default.” Please read the postscript for a dispatch from Mr. Patri regarding the upcoming execution date of Richard Jordan.

When it comes to having access to people on the outsideAs a death row prisoner, I have rights that must abide.At this prison, MDOC gives me three ways to communicateAnd they contracted Global Tel to bring the systems up to dateI’m having serious concerns, so this upgrade is up for debateAs I don’t believe GTL is even a third-rate.Because if they are the only game in townIt becomes robbery by default that’s going down.It’s more akin to a Ponzi scheme conThat’s robbing the s**t out of me without using a gun.MDOC and GTL are f*****g up my daysHolding my connection hostage in multiple waysAt 5 cents a minute, I’m allowed access to video callsAs long as I use the portal stand nailed to the guard tower wallThe majority of the time, I’m catching hell just trying to log in.When I finally succeed, it cuts off and kicks me out againThinking I might have better luck, I try a regular call by phoneI dial the numbers and pay by debit to call homeThe static is so bad that my family can’t hear what I’m sayingAnd when I complain to MDOC and GTL, they mean mug me as if I’m not payingThey had me giddy as f**k after 33 years in a cellWhen they told me I’d be able to send an emailBut this goddamn wifi keeps hijacking my messages so they don’t get savedAny time someone decides to use the microwaveError! Login failed! You are currently logged into another device #112206Hmm, now ain’t that some s**t.At these inflated prices, they’re treating me like a sharecropper’s slaveAnd they’re picking my pockets, ensuring they get paidI’m feeling like a junkie, a goddamn cluckerWho’s fiending for a fix from these crooked motherfuckersYou best believe when service is this shitty all the timeThat some funky-ass crook is stealing my last dime.I don’t know what to do, I’m at my wit’s endBecause GTL is causing smokescreens between me, family, and friendsIf I get a contraband cell phone, MDOC makes that a sinNo matter what I do, I can’t f*****g win.

Having lived on Mississippi Death Row for over three decades I have watched twenty men walk to the death chamber to be murdered at the hands of the State. I have watched six men walk back to claim their freedom after serving decades fighting not to be murdered at the hands of the State.

Mississippi has an upcoming execution scheduled, June 25th, for a seventy-nine-year-old man—Richard Jordan, a man who has been on death row for the past fifty years. Richard is a man whom the prison allows to be out of his cell all day, from 3:30am until 6pm. What does that say that after fifty plus years that the State now deems it necessary to kill this man? What does it also say that religious and anti-death penalty organizations are willing to wait until this man has been set a date, or wait until the day this man is executed before speaking out and speaking up about the injustice and inhumanity to this process within our judicial system? So, here is some food for thought: when Rome nailed Jesus Christ to the cross, that was an execution. How can people of faith claim to be followers of Jesus yet continue to stand on the sidelines and watch as States like Mississippi continue to execute people?

L. Patri - June 19, 2025

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In April, we talked with author Neesha Powell-Ingabire—who was just nominated for Georgia Author of the Year!—about their debut memoir-in-essays Come By Here. Neesha was vulnerable, honest, and authentic. She talked about how in writing about her own family history, she uncovered important moments in Black history that helped her understand her coastal Georgia roots in a new way. We also spoke about power of tears and the importance of reviving and reclaiming Black agricultural knowledge and traditions. Neesha also broke down their writing process—how a journalism background did and did not translate to writing more personal essays.

You can listen to these book club recordings in the Substack app, in your web browser, or on Spotify1. Subscribe to the show on Spotify to get notifications when new episodes are released. Recorded book club conversations are only available to paid subscribers, but the live book club sessions will continue to be free and open to all readers.

Thank you, Neesha! Thanks again to our partners: Mississippi Book Festival, Lemuria Books, and Friendly City Books. The team at Red Squared records and produces these discussions at their studio in The Hangar.

Plan ahead and check out our upcoming book club picks!

June 26 at 7pm: Split the Baby with (me!) Lauren Rhoades and moderator Catherine Simone Gray

August 6 at 7pm: World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After with author Martha Park

September 3 at 7pm: Before Elvis: The African American Musicians Who Made the King with author Preston Lauterbach and moderator Talamieka Brice

RED SQUARED is an award-winning, Black-owned video and film production company based in Jackson, Mississippi. We bring stories to life through documentaries, commercials, and live event coverage, with a deep commitment to Mississippi’s culture, history, and community. Subscribe to RED SQUARED for updates and behind-the-scenes stories.

This is the latest installment in the Chronicles from Parchman series, a monthly column by writer, L. Patri, who has been fighting his wrongful conviction on Parchman’s death row for over thirty years. This week, Mr. Patri and I were able to record him reading his essay. Click “Listen to Post” if you want the audio experience. Important to note for this essay—though he writes under the pseudonym “L. Patri,” our author’s first name is Joesph.

They tell me the dead don’t sleep, eat, nor rest, that they come to those they love in their hour of need. I suppose that is why I sit here now, waiting and watching P.Nut and thinking about how long I’ve known him. He’s up in age now, fifty-five, so that makes me seventy-five, even though I have not aged in human years for quite some time, as I was fifty when I left the world of the living. As I’m unsure about how this whole “coming back” thing actually works, I will suppose, again, that I must look close to how he remembers me in life, though P.Nut has changed over these many years that I’ve been away. But I still think it’s best that I left, though I doubt he’ll agree. So I am hesitant, as I don’t know what his reaction will be after seeing me again.

On the day I met P.Nut, I was walking through the path in the woods that ran close by my sister’s home, fallen leaves swishing around my feet, when I noticed this kid playing with the hogs. Throwing old rinds from different sorts of fruit and corn seeds into the mud to watch them root it out and eat. I took him to be about six, and because I lived nearby, I asked him what he was doing, whose child he was, and why he was out there all alone. The kid just looked at me like he was dumbfounded and mumbled something I didn’t quite catch. So I took a step closer, and he bolted. I tell you. I’d never seen a child that fast, and he didn’t miss a beat as he hopped over the fence and began yelling.

“S**t,” I said. “I didn’t mean ta frighten ya, boy.”

I happened to catch a name he was screaming like some wild banshee: “Uncle Mann! Uncle Mann!” I knew then that I’d get on round to the house because Uncle Mann, who also went by Bear, didn’t hold quarters to someone messing with his kin. I did find it funny, albeit a little scary, that I didn’t recognize the boy, because he was still relatively new in 1975-74, you understand. But that ain’t no excuse, as my sister was his grandmomma, and her oldest daughter his momma. I should’ve known.

Anyway, as I was saying. P.Nut has grown old, gray hairs in his face showing signs of the stress he must’ve been living with these many years inside a cage. I know I should’ve come back long before now, but I tell you. The boy just plumb pushed me away after the death of his aunt Betty Jo in 1984. Never did see a kid so close to his aunt that way; he even left home to live with her when she grew up and got her own place. But I think I can understand a little of that now-a-days, because Betty Jo was a real killa disco lady, ya hear, and all her friends were just like her. She never had a day that wasn’t a party and you have to know. In 1980-79, disco was live and jumping. Plus, Betty let the boy do what he wanted, you understand.

So I can’t blame him, like I said. But before her death, me and the kid got to know each other. Turns out we had the same name—Joe or Joseph—though P.Nut preferred his nickname. Once I scooted on round to the house so Bear didn’t come out shooting that rifle of his, that’s how I got to know P.Nut. His momma, my niece, was close by, and he hid behind her legs, pointing at me like I was out to kidnap him and all. I tell you.

We finally sat down in his Granny Nellie’s house, out on the car porch, as she had built a wall around the thing and turned it into a sitting room that had two long, tinted windows, maybe four feet long. You could watch what was going on outside in the yard and the street, but can’t nobody see you in the room. I never did see such a thing like that before, and so I went up to it and made sure they wasn’t jiving me, understand, and sho-nuff, I knocked on the window and kids were looking this way and that-a-way but didn't see who’s doing it. Ha!

My baby sister Nellie was sitting in her chair by a side door that led out to the side of the house, as this room had three doors. Four, if you count the door to the washroom that was on her right side. One door led out to the front of the house, and the other door led you into the house, and she was just sitting there sipping on those Milwaukee beers, smoking her prince albert pipe tobacco, and just a grinning. Nellie and me are part Natchez Indian from a tribe that used to claim these lands way back when, and you can see more Indian in her than you can our momma Hattie, who was sitting on the couch next to the wall that led you into the house.

Momma Hattie was also smoking her pipe tobacco and cussing like some crazy lady. She was a big woman compared to Nellie, in size, height, and weight, and mean as a snake if you pissed her off. I tell you. I’ve seen the woman pick up a snake and throw it clear across that road out yonder and whack a kid that sassed her! So, I try to be as nice as can be in her presence. But my sister Nellie didn’t have such a temperament. She would just shush you quiet.

Besides Bear, myself, and P.Nut, P.Nut’s momma, Lee, was there, as I said, and the boy was still hiding behind her leg. That woman was just as huge as Momma Hattie. Everybody called her Erma Lee and she was every bit as tall as six feet four inches and weighed around 260-50 pounds. She could hold her own, as she’d been running in the streets since age thirteen, working in bars and clubs and such, to get money and help her momma with her six siblings, who were still in school trying to get some learning. Erma Lee had five kids of her own by that time, and in 1975-74, when she was twenty-four or twenty-three years of age, she was shacking up with the youngest boy’s daddy, a truck driver. She drove, too, here and there, on the road with him, but not much. He was married, they say.

Bear, well, I guess the name says it all there. He was Erma Lee’s brother and well over six feet six inches. He drove logger trucks for Harvey B. + Sons, hauling pulpwood all across Mississippi and Louisiana. Eventually, their brother Samuel, and Lee’s husband Charles, who she married in 1976, both worked for the logging company, too. They were close knitted as any family could be.

I get ahead of myself talking family. P.Nut finally let go of his mother’s leg and ventured out to see who I was. Although I didn’t introduce myself by name, he had heard his folks call me Joe, you see. I am his mother’s uncle, and she’s just about as close me as P.Nut is close to his Aunt Betty Jo. But listen, because I guess things is getting just a tad bit confusing to you. Let me go back to where I started, before I got all sentimental about the family.

Later on, after that first meeting with P.Nut, when he was around six years old, his mother lived close by to his Granny Nellie in a place called La Grange. A rural area in Natchez, Mississippi, where Country folks migrated to when they left the Deep Country down on Lower Woodville Road and out in Kingston Way. Years earlier, the Klan had burned out his Great Granny Hattie and the family one winter night. But P.Nut, who was only four or three, doesn't actually recall much of that. Only what he’s heard his sister tell, as she was around eight or seven years old and remembers walking in the cold night. So this one particular night, P.Nut decided he wanted to go home, and because their house wasn’t so far away from his Granny Nellie’s home, if he took to the woods and used the short cuts of the bypass, it was maybe three or two minutes, you see. It was getting on dark around this time, but the family didn’t worry much about their children in the ‘70s and ‘60s because, as I told you, everybody just about knew everybody in that community, and most were re…