Green Fields: Crime, Punishment, & a Boyhood Between

Publishers Weekly

Cowser (Dream Season) explores the 1979 murder of his former schoolmate Cary Ann Medlin and the trial and eventual execution of her killer, Robert Glen Coe. On the evening of September 1, 1979, eight-year-old Cary Ann disappeared while riding her bike with her stepbrother in Greenfield, Tenn., a town near Cowser's boyhood home. Her body was found less than a day later on the outskirts of town; she'd been raped and stabbed. Authorities quickly arrested Coe, then 23, and he confessed almost immediately. Despite his attorneys' attempts to plead insanity, Coe was sentenced to death. He remained on death row for over two decades while his sentence was appealed, overturned, reinstated, and briefly stayed, until he was finally executed on April 19, 2000, the first execution performed in Tennessee in 40 years. Cowser ably juggles the history of Coe's life and legal battle with his own peripheral connections to the case, raising a powerful examination about the lasting impact of violence and capital punishment in the Deep South. (Nov.)

Library Journal

On September 2, 1979, the sleepy rural town of Greenfield, TN, was rocked by the rape and murder of eight-year-old Cary Ann Medlin. Within days, Robert Glen Coe confessed, then recanted, and was tried, convicted, and finally executed 20 years later. Cowser (English, St. Lawrence University) was Cary Ann's classmate, and the case has continued to haunt him. Coe's 1999 execution brought back the time and compelled the author to revisit the event, from his memories of Cary Ann and of the town through the crime and its aftermath, as he reflects on the consequences of this brutal act, not only for the families but for those, like him, who experienced the crime from a greater emotional distance. He decries the sentimental story of angelic victim and demonic killer, seeing instead a case of poverty and mental illness that turn a stark morality play into something more complex and sad. VERDICT Cowser's poetic prose enhances this meditation on a community, a crime, and how each affected the other. Recommended for fans of true crime, Southern memoirs, and social justice.—Deirdre Bray Root, Middletown P.L., OH