Let the Lord Sort Them

“Maurice Chammah’s book comes at an important time. . . . Chammah embeds well-wrought cultural analysis within the ins and outs of historical narrative. . . . Chammah zeroes in on one detail at a time, but his intent to provide both texture and breadth is evident. . . . The accumulation of moments and personalities in the story of the death penalty in America is exactly what makes Chammah’s account so compelling.”­­­­­­—The Christian Century

“A searing history of the rise and fall of capital punishment . . . Let the Lord Sort Them urges readers to reckon with the ugliest aspects of Texas history, and with how the political debate over the death penalty has elided the long-lasting trauma that executions inflict on everyone involved.”—Texas Monthly

“It’s a book pitched straight into the gulf between universal theory and individual experience.”—Josephine Livingstone, The New Republic

“Maurice Chammah has given us an indispensable history of how the debate over capital punishment has taken shape in our courts. And by centering the book deep in the heart of Texas, ‘the epicenter of the death penalty,’ he lays bare the human experience of litigating these heartrending cases through remarkably intimate, fair-minded, and trustworthy reporting on the people arguing over the fate of human life.”—Robert Kolker, New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

“When we arrogate to ourselves the prerogatives of the gods, the inconsistencies and stupidities of our behaviors become more glaring and more disturbing. In this magisterial study, Maurice Chammah is here to tell us about our failures, and how we can do better.”—Errol Morris, director of The Thin Blue Line

“An extraordinarily hopeful glimpse of a future in which we are finally beginning to imagine a very different version of justice—one in which the immediate and generational fallout is not so devastating.”—Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy

“Superbly reported and beautifully written, Let the Lord Sort Them shines a bright light in the darkest corners of the criminal justice system. It is a masterwork of nonfiction that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.”—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America

“Texas and the death penalty have a history, as they say. Melding intimate portraits with sweeping scholarship, he reveals the lies we tell ourselves in the name of justice.”—Ken Armstrong, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter and co-author of Unbelievable

“A wonderfully written blend of history and reportage, delivered with sensitivity and grace.”—Nate Blakeslee, New York Times bestselling author of American Wolf and Tulia