That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

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Masters led a childhood far too common in our supposedly civilized country. His stepfather nearly beat his mother to death, his mother was a heroin addict, his kindly foster parents didn't last, and the others were far less gentle. Like most kids in his situation, survival meant breaking the law. The stepping-stones that led him to San Quentin were sadly predictable -- foster care, juvenile hall, military schools, jail -- but they've taken him down an even darker path to death row, where he has spent the last 18 years, on false charges.

\ \ However, all is not lost. For Masters converted to Buddhism, and through its teachings gained an ability to face his own failings and the poor decisions that got him where he is today. A lack of bitterness is the most compelling evidence of this deep internal shift. "That I was wrongly convicted of murder and sent to death row is disheartening," he writes, "but it's easier than living with the pain of having taken the life of another human being." His message is unwavering: Every child matters, and we fail far too many.

\ \ Behind his book is a movement to free Masters from prison. His plea for nonviolence and his determination to hope, even from death row, that he might be afforded the opportunity to have a positive impact on others is a sobering lesson, related with humility and gratitude, beauty and eloquence. \ (Holiday 2009 Selection)

Sister - Helen Prejean

Jarvis Jay Masters was set on a dangerous course which eventually brought him to death row. Somehow, within those walls, he now demonstrates divine grace in his daily life and by the cautionary tale he shares within these pages. This amazing, wise man deserves our ear, and our support.

Desmond Tutu

Forthright about his own failings, Masters’ truth has brought him reconciliation with his best self. His compelling memoir is a plea for reform, for a common humanity, and I share his hope that this moving story will redouble our efforts to make sure that every child matters.

David Sheff

A real-life The Wire-heartbreaking and harrowing, impossible to put down. A miraculous accomplishment, That Bird Has My Wings captivates, instructs, and inspires as Masters shows how enlightenment can occur even in a place as grim as San Quentin Prison’s death row.

Van Jones

Jarvis Jay Masters’ moving memoir provides an intimate portrait of the tragic racial inequality in our justice system, and testifies to the need for better education, greater training, and increased opportunity to keep these forgotten youth from ending up in our nation’s juvenile centers and prisons. Read this book!

James Garbarino

All across America, boys are lost to trauma and deprivation. Few of them have given voice to their experience and the redemptive power of spirituality as has Jarvis Jay Masters.

Mike Farrell

Masters’ . . .ability to recognize, subdue and transform the self-destructive drive such life-denying forces promote is a lesson for us all. His time is now. His book is a testament to the human spirit."

San Francisco Magazine

As Masters moves from foster homes to juvie to prison, you start to understand how badly the system fails kids like him. . . .a page-turner.

San Francisco Chronicle

The compassionate act of self-discovery captured in "That Bird Has My Wings" is one that, will reach well beyond the confines of one cell, one act, or one person - and inspire many.

Insight News

That Bird Has My Wings absolutely soars."

Booklist

"Masters’ intelligent, incisive prose paints a compelling depiction of the horrors leading to his situation . . . Masters gives us much to think about."

Shambhala Sun

"Masters’ incisive unearthing of his past is a graceful and ultimately liberating story."

San Francisco magazine

As Masters moves from foster homes to juvie to prison, you start to understand how badly the system fails kids like him. . . .a page-turner.

Jack Kornfield

Brave, heartbreaking, redemptive and wise. Jarvis Jay Masters has turned his life into remarkable good medicine.

Publishers Weekly

In this polished tale that belies the author's raw origins, Masters (Finding Freedom), who has been imprisoned on San Quentin's death row since 1990 and become a devout Buddhist, recalls the neglect, abuse and cycle of crime and hopelessness that relegated him to prison by age 19. As a child in the late '60s, Masters and his siblings were shut up in their house in Long Beach, Calif., because their mother and stepfather had turned the place into a heroin den. Filthy, starved and whipped, the children eventually attracted the attention of neighbors, then were scattered among foster homes. Despite a happy period spent with a caring, elderly Christian couple, Jarvis was once again uprooted, this time to a hardened, joyless home where the other foster boys quickly taught him the ropes to survive. Dispirited, he ran away repeatedly from age 10 on, and the book largely follows his trajectory from one institution to the next, from McLaren Hall, where he enjoyed a sense of belonging, to the abusive Valley Boys Academy, where he was trained like a pitbull to fight the other boys. Being united with his extended family in Harbor City was both a blessing and a curse, because they gradually dragged him into a downward spiral of robbery, violence and jail. Masters's claim of innocence in the murder that landed him on death row is beside the point in this work that's a frank, heartfelt rendering of a young life that should have mattered. (Oct.)

Library Journal

This brave account of a childhood ravaged by neglect, violence, and institutional indifference is remarkable for its utter lack of anger and bitterness. Masters (Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row) entered San Quentin in 1980 at age 19 for armed robbery and was moved to death row in 1990 after being convicted as an accessory in the murder of a guard—though he professed his innocence, which newly uncovered evidence supports. Here, he recounts in utilitarian but not unlovely prose a boyhood marked by unthinkable brutality, starting with parents who were both heroin addicts. He never uses his story to excuse himself; indeed, his regret over his past crimes is palpable. Instead, Masters serves up his own life as a cautionary tale to those with the power to protect children from the kind of domestic and institutional abuse he suffered. Despite the title, the events that sent him to death row get only the briefest mention; Masters's conversion to Buddhism in San Quentin has brought him solace and clarity. VERDICT A heartbreaking memoir; the brutal conditions of Masters's boyhood will be difficult for some readers to take, but his ultimate message of hope and reconciliation is moving and inspiring. Highly recommended.—Rachel Bridgewater, Reed Coll. Lib., Portland, OR

Kirkus Reviews

A San Quentin inmate's account of the path that led him to death row. Masters (Finding Freedom: Writings from Death Row, 1997) wants readers to know that he did not kill the prison guard for whose murder he was sentenced to die. The sentiment is almost a passing thought in this autobiography, which dwells on the horrendous childhood and youth that set him on the road to prison. Raised in hunger and filth by his heroin-addicted mother, Masters became a state ward and cycled in and out of foster homes and juvenile institutions. Save for a saintly elderly couple who loved him as their own son, his overseers ranged from irresponsible to sadistic. The mother in one foster couple tried to jam his fingers into an electric garbage disposal; in a military-style boys home, the guards staged bloody fights between their charges. In 1981, the 19-year-old Masters began a two-decade sentence for armed-robbery convictions. There he became a Buddhist and published author whose poetry garnered a PEN award. Convicted of participating in the murder of a guard, Masters declares his innocence, an appeal that remains to be adjudicated as of this writing. He admirably accepts blame for his lesser crimes and for blowing chances to escape his fate. Yet questions fester, not just about his alleged role in the murder but in the wealth of detail he provides about long-ago events. A gripping indictment of poverty and the foster-care system, less successful in addressing the subtitle's claim of innocence. Stay tuned.