Mature
Audio only
Length7h 23m
About this audiobook
On a June night in 1983, twenty-three-year-old Karla Faye Tucker and her boyfriend, fueled by a sinister cocktail of illicit drugs, broke into a Houston apartment. "We were very wired," Tucker later testified, "and we was looking for something to do." Though they later claimed they entered the premises with no murderous intent, they ended up slaughtering two people—one a sworn enemy, the other an utter stranger. The weapon: a pickax they found in the apartment.
Fourteen years later, in early 1998, Tucker was facing lethal injection. But after her religious conversion in prison, Texas would be executing a different woman than the one who'd committed the murders. Her change was so dramatic that the most powerful and influential voices in American televangelism—Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell among them—were urging viewers to contact Texas's governor, George W. Bush, and plead for clemency. One follower was author Mark Beaver's father, a devout Southern Baptist deacon who asked Beaver to put his fledgling literary ambitions to work by composing a letter on his behalf to Governor Bush.
Through a merger of true crime, social history, and memoir,
The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker illustrates how a seemingly distant news story triggers a national reckoning and exposes a growing divide in America's evangelical community. It's a tale of how one woman defies all conventions of death row inmates, and her saga serves as an unlikely but fascinating prism for exploring American culture and the limits of forgiveness and transformation. It's also a deeply personal reflection on how a father's request leads his son to struggle with who he was raised to be and who he imagines becoming.
Audiobook details
GenreTrue Crime, Biography and Memoir
Length7 hrs 23 mins
Narrated byMark Beaver
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateSep 12, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Opening Credits
13Chapter 9: The Thing Is Quickly Enough Done
2Dedication
14Chapter 10: Here and Happy
3Epigraph
15Chapter 11: Until She Be Dead
4Prologue: All Five
16Chapter 12: The Ballad of Karla Faye Tucker
5Chapter 1: Sweet Woman of God
17Chapter 13: The Real Debbie Thornton
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 2: Your Very Own Gethsemane
18Chapter 14: Southern Gothic
7Chapter 3: Looking for Something to Do
19Chapter 15: This Mess That Some People Call Life
8Chapter 4: Evangel
20Chapter 16: I Will Wait for You
9Chapter 5: Fish and Ketchup
21Chapter 17: The State of Texas, Office of the Governor, Austin
10Chapter 6: Puppet Show
22Chapter 18: The Son's Execution Date
11Chapter 7: And That's the Way with Jesus
23Acknowledgments
12Chapter 8: Well, Hell Yes
24Closing Credits
The SuspectKent Alexander, Kevin Salwen14h 12m$23 · $0.00
The Cause of DeathCynric Temple-Camp8h 59m$29 · $0.00
Riding with EvilKen Croke, Dave Wedge9h 42m$29 · $0.00
Raven 23Gina Keating8h 16m$26 · $0.00
The Two FBIsNicole Parker10h 8m$29 · $0.00
I Catch KillersGary Jubelin15h 32m$33 · $0.00
The Redemption Of Bobby LoveBobby Love, Cheryl Love9h 13m$29 · $0.00
The Life We ChoseMatt Birkbeck8h 57m$29 · $0.00
The Truth About AaronJonathan Hernandez5h 15m$24 · $0.00
No Ordinary BirdArtis Henderson6h 23m$24 · $0.00
I'll Be Gone in the DarkMichelle McNamara10h 7m$29 · $0.00
The Silk Route SpyDr Enakshi Sengupta5h 57m$24 · $0.00
Beyond the Body FarmBill Bass, Jon Jefferson6h 17m$24 · $0.00
The Killer Across the TableJohn E. Douglas, Mark Olshaker11h 7m$8 · $0.00
Inside the CartelMartin Suarez, Ian Frisch10h 50m$29 · $0.00
The Wheels of JusticeRenee Fehr5h 51m$17 · $0.00
Teasing Secrets from the DeadEmily Craig PhD10h 45m$20
How to Start a WarMichael Trapani9h 48m$23
White Hot HateDick Lehr12h 27m$29 · $0.00
Scarface and the UntouchableMax Allan Collins, A. Brad Schwartz18h 35m$40 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m$29 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass42h 37m$1 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m$29 · $0.00
A Bridge Not Too FarDeepak Ohri4h 55m$15
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m$24 · $0.00
A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings With George Müller (The Complete Four-Volume Edition)George Müller43h 39m$2 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m5 (1)$29 · $0.00
The Boys and MeMark Miller8h 32m$23
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m$20 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m$26 · $0.00
The Lives of BrianBrian Johnson9h 45m$29 · $0.00
I Am The StormJanice Dean9h$8 · $0.00
Black History CollectionFrederick Douglass, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois27h 9m$18 · $0.00
Just as I AmCicely Tyson16h 8m$33 · $0.00
You may also like
The Priest, the Woman and the ConfessionalCharles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy6h 39m$1 · $0.00
Ten Nights in A Bar RoomT. S. Arthur6h 8m$2.30
Some Kind of HateSarah Darer Littman8h 43m$20
IntellectualsPaul Johnson18h 18m$28
My Life without GodWilliam J. Murray10h 24m$20
The Gunning of AmericaPamela Haag16h 27m$25
Rigged JusticeJohn Vandemoer7h 9m$24 · $0.00
American WomanSusan Choi15h 21m$23
Mercy StreetJennifer Haigh10h 37m$29 · $0.00
Les Misérables, Vol. 1/5: FantineVictor Hugo11h 49m$2.30
The JungleUpton Sinclair13h 17m$23
The Great World and Timothy ColtLouis Auchincloss9h 21m$20 · $0.00
The Complete Plays of Leo Tolstoy – 6 Unabridged Maude Translations (Annotated)Leo Tolstoy21h 58m$2 · $0.00
The Lawyers, A Drama in Five ActsAugust Wilhelm Iffland2h 51m$1 · $0.00
Vanity Fair: August 2016 IssueVanity Fair5h 19m$14
Explicit ContentSofia Quintero12h 19m$23 · $0.00
The One WomanThomas Jr. Dixon9h 36m$2 · $0.00
Crossed OverBeverly Lowry9h 31m$20 · $0.00
Everybody's Business Is Nobody's BusinessDaniel Defoe48m$2.30
Republican GomorrahMax Blumenthal11h 34m$21 · $0.00