The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection)

Anthony Ray Hinton · Lara Love Hardin

Mar 2018 · Sold by St. Martin's Press

About this ebook

Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection

The Instant New York Times Bestseller

A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

“An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity.”
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu

In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. Stunned, confused, and only twenty–nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.

But with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence—full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. For the next twenty–seven years he was a beacon—transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty–four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty–year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy.

Ratings and reviews

This book teaches us all many lessons and the greatest of these was hope . Thank you Mr Hinton for being the ultimate teacher of these many lessons. It appears that your exceptional calling is now shared with anyone who reads your book or has the good fortune to hear you impart your story, wisdom and advocacy to abolish the death penalty. I wish you every happiness for the remainder of your life.

I listened to the audiobook for this and I'm so glad I did. Listening to the voice narration and hearing all the emotion through the book made it much more real. Everyone has a general and kind of in-the-back-of-my-mind concept of the humiliation and cruelty that is our prison/justice system thanks to t.v. and movies but I don't think many people actually understand what we're doing to human beings in the system. This book was eye opening and not only depicts the depression, rage and oppression that runs rampant in prison, but also the hope, love and kindness that is possible in people we believe to be irredeemable. I had actual tears in my eyes during passages that talked about how many men on death row found more love and compassion with their fellow inmates than with the free society outside. This is definitely a MUST READ for young adults who have troubled lives and even those who don't because many of the people who end up in jail and death row are young and don't know any better

4.5 stars The Sun Does Shine is an unforgettable, haunting story of a terrible injustice that was done to a black man from Alabama, Ray Hinton. In 1985 Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and sentenced to die by execution. Ray spent nearly thirty years on death row before the state of Alabama admitted that they had made a mistake, and set him free. Although evidence and a polygraph test had proven Ray to be innocent of the crime, that he was accused of, he sat on death row for thirty years, anyway. This memoir is heartbreaking and brought me to tears several times. When Ray Hinton decided to stop hating the people who put him on death row, his life and those around him began to change. Ray adopted his inmates as his new family and brought inspiration, laughter, and faith to everyone on his cell block. Even the guards couldn’t help but like Ray Hinton. Although this story was difficult to read because of the terrible injustice, done to an innocent man, it’s a powerful novel; moving and unforgettable. This story will stay with me for a very long time. Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley, for my advanced review copy.

About the author

ANTHONY RAY HINTON spent nearly thirty years on death row for crimes he didn’t commit. Released in April 2015, Hinton now speaks widely on prison reform and the power of faith and forgiveness. He lives in Alabama.