Summary: Chapters 13–16

In Chapter 13, “No Monsters,” Hinton continues to venture into his imagination while also befriending the other inmates. Although he knows not all of them are innocent, they also are not monsters. At the same time, his new attorney continues working on his appeal while Hinton avails himself of his right to use the prison’s law library to study his own case. Hinton is shocked when he learns that his friend Henry is an infamous Ku Klux Klan member convicted of lynching a young Black boy. Nonetheless, Hinton doesn’t let this information change his feelings about Henry and forgives him for his crime. At one point during a visiting time, Henry introduces Hinton to his parents. Henry calls Hinton his best friend and is upset when his father refuses to shake Hinton’s hand. He expresses remorse for the murder he committed, remarking, “You never knew what a person could grow up to become.”

In Chapter 14, “Love Is a Foreign Language,” around this same time, his current lawyer takes a new job, and Hinton is assigned to Alan Black, an attorney from Boston. Hinton begins to use his charm and humor to win over the guards and even the warden. Seeking to help other inmates “escape” their confinement through their imagination, Hinton proposes starting a book club. The warden agrees as long as the inmates can get their books through donations. Hinton presents the book club to the warden as a way of “keeping the peace.” While the book club is being set up, Henry’s father suffers a heart attack during a visit and dies. Hinton and the other inmates offer their condolences. Hinton sees that death row has changed Henry and made him see how wrong the values his father taught him were.

At a book club meeting about James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain in Chapter 15, “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” Henry reads a passage that taught him that everything he was told about Black people was what Black people believed about whites. Hinton agrees with Henry and says the world belongs to everyone. When Henry’s execution date arrives, he admits to Hinton that he thinks of him as a brother.

In Chapter 16, “Shakedown,” guards from another prison come to search Holman Prison’s death row and give the prisoners a hard time. Hinton stays positive despite his poor treatment, feeling pity for these guards. Around this time his attorney tries to make a deal with the state to give Hinton life in prison without parole. Hinton refuses the deal because he knows it would make exoneration impossible. He fires his attorney, seeing the deal as a “shakedown.”

Analysis: Chapters 13–16

While Hinton befriends many fellow prisoners and even guards, his friendship with Henry Hays is one of the more remarkable relationships in the book. Hinton’s capacity for forgiveness shows in his ability to look past Henry’s racially motivated crime and also enables Henry himself to become a better person. Throughout these chapters, Hinton makes it clear that Henry, much like the guards who come to shake Hinton down, are people who were not loved enough. Hinton refuses to see anyone in the prison as a monster, despite understanding that some of his fellow inmates are vicious killers. He believes that the vicious ones are themselves victims of mistreatment that shaped them into what they became, much like Henry, who was taught by his parents and the KKK to hate Black people. Hinton does not believe people are defined by their mistakes; he believes people can change for the better and redeem themselves no matter the crime.

Hinton’s desire to start a book club arises from his compassion and a selfless desire to help other inmates use their imaginations as escape mechanisms the same way he does. Many of the books chosen are by Black authors or address racial inequality. These books help Henry better understand his past mistakes, grow beyond his racist upbringing, and feel remorse for his crime. These chapters also show how Hinton has completely reversed his initial persona in prison. No longer the sullen, silent killer, Hinton now appears friendly and humorous, joking with guards and inmates alike. He uses his charm to convince the warden to improve the prisoners’ conditions, while making the warden think the book club would help keep the men docile. But despite Hinton’s charm and sympathetic story, he is still at the mercy of the justice system, as shown by the two “shakedowns”—first by unfamiliar guards, who bully him, and then by his attorney, who tries to push him to accept a bad deal that would imprison him for life. Hinton sees through these fronts and refuses to be intimidated.