Sister Helen Prejean: A Memoir on a Life of Social Activism

Sister Helen Prejean, the acclaimed author of Dead Man Walking, has writ­ten a new spir­i­tu­al mem­oir, River of Fire: My Spiritual Journey. The book, released August 13, 2019 by Random House pub­lish­ers, tells the sto­ry of her spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment from join­ing the Congregation of St. Joseph at age 18 to becom­ing a lead­ing voice in the move­ment to abol­ish the death penalty.

The ​“spark at the heart of [her death-penal­ty activism],” Prejean told The New York Times, was when, in her for­ties, she first start­ed cor­re­spond­ing with death-row pris­on­er Patrick Sonnier. That expe­ri­ence formed the basis of Dead Man Walking. ​“The big annun­ci­a­tion was writ­ing a man on death row and wit­ness­ing his exe­cu­tion. When I walked out of that exe­cu­tion cham­ber, all this was new to me. I didn’t know any­thing about the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. I love to quote what Tim Robbins said: ​‘The nun was in over her head.’ Back then I didn’t know anything.” 

Prejean has pro­vid­ed spir­i­tu­al com­fort to six men whom she accom­pa­nied to their exe­cu­tions. She described that expe­ri­ence to Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, say­ing, ​“Of course I’m on the out­side of them, but in a way I’m on the inside of them too, because I’ve got­ten to know them. … [They] can­not help but antic­i­pate and imag­ine their death, which is com­ing. It’s pre­de­ter­mined, and they all have the same night­mare: ​‘The guards come in for me. It’s my time, and I’m kick­ing, strug­gling, ​“No, no!” and they’re try­ing to drag me out of my cell, and then I wake up and it’s a dream.’ … They shared that with me and their inner anguish.” She said that, dur­ing the exe­cu­tions, she tries to con­vey ​“pure pres­ence” to the pris­on­ers. ​“In my faith­ful­ness to them and in vis­it­ing them, they know my love and care for them, and that I believe in their dignity.” 

River of Fire dis­cuss­es how her life was affect­ed by the Church reforms of Vatican II in 1962, which allowed her greater free­dom to choose her own min­istry, and how she lat­er came to embrace a mis­sion of social jus­tice. In inter­views about the book, she describes break­ing out of ​“two cocoons.” ​“One was the spir­i­tu­al one that by pray­ing you helped the world be a bet­ter place. And the oth­er was white priv­i­lege because I was tak­en care of in every way. Nuns were held in great regard. We could ride the bus­es free. If we went to a restau­rant, some­one would pay the bill. I didn’t know any poor peo­ple. I didn’t know that right down the street from the con­vent where I was liv­ing, in the New Orleans sub­urbs by the lake, were 10 major hous­ing projects. You grow up in these envelopes. My good mama and dad­dy would say, ​‘Now hon­ey, it’s bet­ter for the races not to mix.’ I didn’t know booscat!”