Ghosts Over the Boiler: Voices from Alabama’s Death Row
by Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty
Edited by Katie Owens-Murphy
Vanderbilt University Press, 2023
Paperback, $24.95; Web PDF, $19.95
Reviewed by Holly Genovese
On January 25, 2024, Kenneth Smith was the first person to be executed via nitrogen hypoxia in the United States. Though his art and writing were not featured in the anthology, Kenny Smith (as he was known to his friends) is mentioned repeatedly in Ghosts Over the Boiler: Voices from Alabama Death Row, a collection of essays, poems, and art published by Vanderbilt University Press for Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty and edited by Katie Owens-Murphy.
Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty (PHADP) was formed in 1989 to organize and create change for those on Alabama’s death row. Over those years it has published a newsletter, excerpts from which are included in Ghosts Over the Boiler, a collection of essays, poems, and art that document the 30-year history of the organization.
PHADP was founded after the unjust execution of Cornelius Singleton, a man who was coerced into signing a confession without a lawyer present, though he was unable to read or write. A Black man who was tried by an all-white jury. A man who was mentally ill and who would not be allowed to be executed today. The organization, at times a literary outlet, a ministry, and a seemingly endless string of obituaries, has never lost sight of its focus: to abolish the death penalty. Abolition—of the death penalty, prisons, and police—has become, if not common, much more frequently discussed among the left in the last decade. PHADP, through all of its changes in leadership, has been fighting for abolition for more than 30 years.
Ghosts Over the Boiler is divided into sections: the beginnings of the organization in the wake of Singleton’s murder, its rapid growth both inside and outside of prison, the acceleration of executions between 2009-2011, the ongoing recommitment to execution in Alabama, and finally botched executions, which many dared to hope would finally put an end to the death penalty but instead have inspired newer and more creative ways to murder its incarcerated people.
In Brian Baldwin’s 1990 editorial, “From the Editor’s Desk,” he writes, “We ask you to see them as writers, not as people of fault. The writers were asked to express themselves about anything they wanted to talk about…we hope to show that inmates on death row have the ability to think, make decisions, and care about other people. The death penalty is a big concern of ours, but it is not our only concern. We think the loss of life should concern everybody, no matter what the circumstances are. The death penalty in America reduces the value of life. It is vengeance to say the least. What would this country be if everybody sought revenge? Would there be an America?”
The most affecting essays in the collection are pieces published posthumously, writers theorizing about the meaning of their coming death. In these moments, the human cost of the death penalty is made abundantly and effectively clear. But these pieces, by Torey McNabb, Michael Thompson, and others, also allow these men to clearly write last words, talk about their legacy, and what they hope for the future, something most people executed by the state do not get.
The existence of the newsletter in itself is political, but many of the essays and op-eds are explicitly political—one argues against the policies of George W. Bush, many discuss botched executions, others question the efficacy of the Supreme Court, and many focus on the money that Alabama, a relatively poor state, spends on capital punishment.
In sum, Ghosts Over the Boiler is a brilliant and moving collection and manages to serve as a history of the organization Project Hope to Abolish the Death Penalty, a political manifesto against its use, and a moving tribute to the men lost to Alabama’s death row.
Holly Genovese (they/them) is a writer, abolitionist, and Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. They hail from the mid-Atlantic (Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania) but have lived in Austin for 5 years with their cat Petunia. Their work can be found at https://holly-genovese.com/.
