DISCOVERIES

The Contradictions

of American

Capital Punishment

Franklin E. Zimring

Oxford University Press: 272 pp., $30

Franklin E. Zimring’s central question in “The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment” is: Why does the United States execute when every other developed nation has ceased to use the taking of life as a legal punishment? Why, for example, in a country in which 38 out of 50 states condone capital punishment, are executions “rampant in the South”? Why is it that other “developed nations” characterize the issue as a question of human rights and not criminal justice? Zimring has some answers.

The most important seems to be the dualism between America’s “vigilante values” (particularly popular in the South, where lynching was long considered a form of justice) and our love of due process. This inconsistency, Zimring claims, creates a dangerous ambivalence. We deal with that ambivalence by falling back on a federal death penalty system, but even state to state, policy rarely reflects public opinion. It’s a bit methodical, but in the end, Zimring is doing more than making a case for or against; he’s presenting an impressive array of facts, suggesting that the U.S. would be “a better nation” if it exorcised those vigilante values.

*

Sixpence House

Lost in a Town of Books

Paul Collins

Bloomsbury: 240 pp., $23.95

When Paul Collins and his wife put their house in San Francisco up for sale so that they could move to Hay-on-Wye, the bookish town that hosts the greatest antiquarian book festival in the world each year and straddles the border between England and Wales, their real estate agent warned them that potential homeowners don’t like to see a lot of books lying about. Collins, whose parents are British, was altogether romantic about the idea of moving to Hay-on-Wye, finding a 16th century home and immersing himself in the tangle of fascinating, if chaotic, digressions that make up the psyche of the used-book hunter. Perhaps too romantic. In the end, he decides to remain an American citizen. It’s a delightful book; we can only hope his passion for books is not as whimsical as his citizenship.

*

I Am Not Jackson

Pollock.

Stories

John Haskell

Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 178 pp., $20

Artists who have chosen language as their medium often feel compelled to use that language in a new way, to differentiate from its everyday use. John Haskell uses language like a surgical instrument to reveal similar emotions in seemingly disparate situations.

Most of the other stories juxtapose characters, for example, Topsy the elephant, electrocuted 100 years ago, and Saartjie, an African woman sold to a freak show in 1810, both seeking love from their abusers. “Good World” moves between the story of a young girl falling into a well and that of Laika, the Russian dog who was sent into space, and two characters in a play, reenacting the same habits over and over again. The common emotion in this story is the feeling of being stuck in repeated behaviors, of not being able to change. In “The Faces of Joan of Arc,” Haskell combines scenes from Joan of Arc’s life with the role of actress Mercedes McCambridge in “The Exorcist” and Hedy Lamarr in “Samson and Delilah” to examine sources of power and authority in these characters.

These are stunningly sophisticated stories in which everything is new: Seeing the world, history and real characters through the decisive lens of a single emotion feels like swimming in an enormous ocean filled with new ways of understanding events and people. Haskell takes the tone of a not-too-obnoxious art critic, patiently explaining what we are looking at, most probably using a pointer. He uncovers the more fascinating, empathic fiction underneath all nonfiction. Haskell is one of those rare authors who makes language seem limitless in its possibilities.